What are C-Type prints?
All our prints at Ag, from digital or film, including film process and print, are C-Types.
“C-Type” is the term given to photographic prints that have been made by exposing light sensitive silver halide paper. No ink is used – this paper is like photographic film in that the image is exposed into the emulsion containing silver crystals, and is then processed in photochemistry. At Ag the majority of paper we use is made by Fujifilm – you can read more about the different types here.
C -Types are exposed either by machine – which is how 99% are made today – or they can be exposed in a traditional darkroom – the paper and chemistry is the same regardless. At Ag we utilise the “Rolls Royce” of photo printers, made by Noritsu for all prints up to 12″ wide. We have a Noritsu 3704G (bought new in 2018) and a 3704HD. For C-Type prints up to 50″/1.2m wide we use the Cymbolic Sciences Oce Lightjet, a legendary piece of equipment made in Canada.
Noritsu 3704G
Lightjet 430
The C-Type advantage
There are some huge advantages of C-Type over prints made with ink.
Continuous Tone
Every pixel is capable of rendering an almost infinite number of tonal values – each pixel can be not only red green or blue, but it can be different intensities of these colours. C -Types have a much smoother transitions between light and dark areas and much more subtle rendering of highlights, shadows and also skin tones. The human eye sees the world in continuous tone and this is why C-Type printing is so well suited to photographic printing.
Inkjet printers, on the other hand, (made by the likes of Epson, for example) generate the image by printing dots on the paper, through a dithering process and print more dots in darker areas and less in lighter areas in order to fool the viewer into seeing a continuous tone. Whilst high end inkjet printing (often referred to as “giclee”) can be very good for reproducing paintings, or heavily stylised photographs, it is inferior when it comes to fine photographic printing.
Our Investment and Value for the Customer
The main reason a lot of photo labs offer only inkjet prints made with Epson and other similar printers, is because there is a much lower level of investment required. A Noritsu 3704 is over £100,000 new, compared to around £5,000 – £20,000 for a typical inkjet machine. Likewise a new Polielettronica or Chromira, the latest equivalents of the Lightjet, are over £150,000. C-Type equipment also demands investment in specialist knowledge for the set up, operation, maintenance and chemistry use.
However, C-Type consumables (paper and chemistry) are much less costly than inkjet as there is no ink to buy: whilst we had to make large investments, the trade off is that we can produce the prints extremely efficiently and to the highest quality. Consequently, we can offer the prints at very competitive prices.
The Environment
Arguably, C-Type is a more environmentally sensitive process: The Fuji paper we use is FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified for sustainability (no other photo paper or inkjet photo paper has FSC certification), the chemistry is easily recycled and there are no plastic and electronic waste found in ink cartridges – which are substantial on commercial inkjet printers. Fujifilm also manufactures their paper in a factory largely powered by wind turbines.
C-Type prints can be ordered here.
What an interesting article! Useful info to convey to customers when explaining what type of print they’re getting.
Hi Mark, many thanks for that. Yes, there is a lot of confusion about photographic printing these days and as to what constitutes a true professional photographic print.