John Hunt (l) with his lab manager, Martyn Headley (r), show off the new Fujifilm Frontier 770 digital minilab they installed for schools photography work at John Hunt Photography, in Radcliffe, Manchester, UK, 28/05/09

Schools Photography chooses Fujifilm Solutions
written by Simon Towler

Schools photography is part of our national culture. We all grow up with it as children, and as parents we later consume it. For the practitioners who provide it, the task divides into two major activities, capture and print. Photographers do the image capture, prints are made by a lab. Both activities may be combined in a single integrated business, although many schools photographers use the services of a specialised lab. Whatever the business model, though, all types of schools service choose Fujiflm solutions.

Schools businesses require individually tailored solutions. That’s what Fujifilm Photo Imaging provides. Fujifilm has the expertise to build a solution that matches the region, market, workflow and scale of any individual schools business, and provides the data capture, print packages and production capacity that suits it best.

For the product

In schools photography, the print is the product. The activity has a reliance on workflow. A single schools assignment can involve handling images of thousands of pupils, sorted into many classes, and output in multiple product variations. Each image has to be linked to the students’ unique ID numbers, and these are associated with their classes. All the prints have to be sorted into one job per pupil, and the packages have to be proofed before parent orders are taken. Because the season is so compressed, into two peak periods either side of the summer holiday, a schools photography business has to output all the work from each school in no more than a few days, so they can move on to the next one.

Two crucial points on the critical path from capture to fulfillment are rendering and printing. Rendering is the software process that turns the captured digital photos into the various product images they’ll be used for, complete with school logos, class mates, personalized text and so on. Rendering, rather than printing, will usually be the limiting factor in productivity. The extremely “bursty” nature of schools printing (thousands of prints are needed quickly in a burst at certain points of each job) requires lab printers with throughput rates so fast, most computers and software would have difficulty keeping up with them. That’s where Fujifilm comes in.

For speed and productivity

When John Hunt’s already sizable schools photography business in Radcliffe, Manchester experienced growth, he needed more speed from his minilabs. He studied the alternatives, then chose Fujifilm (the leading provider of photo imaging solutions in the UK). A new Fujifilm Frontier 770 digital minilab, installed this year, proved twice as fast as John’s old pair of hybrid labs. He needs to output all the 6×4 inch proof cards for any school within two days of completing a shoot. With his new Fujifilm solution, he can, and now prints between 2,500 and 3,000 proofs a day at peak seasons.

Software plays its part here too. John Hunt says: “The LiteBox Schools system supplied by Fujifilm processes schools packages more efficiently, so there’s less cutting and sorting. All the work can now be done by just one to two people.”

Major professional laboratory, Dunns Imaging Group, also use Fujifilm Frontier minilabs for their trade schools service. Dunns’ schools lab switched to Fujifilm machines three years ago, with the purchase of their first Frontier 570. Within eighteen months they added two more. The reliability of the equipment gives Dunns the confidence to run just three machines at capacity, rather than add a fourth for redundancy.

Gary Denham, director, said: “We chose the Frontiers because really we are, if you like, a Fuji lab. We already had other Frontiers in the building. They are very good machines, solid, so it was a natural progression for us.”

Fujifilm is the obvious solutions provider for smaller schools photography businesses too. In fact, this end of the market is often where innovation is introduced. For instance, it was the smaller businesses that first pioneered digital schools photography, and exploited the opportunity to link data to their images, something we take for granted today.

For businesses large and small

Dave Clarke runs a small and thriving schools photography business in Scotland, called Snapping Sam. He can adapt quickly to market changes. He switched to Fujifilm minilabs about a year ago, not for higher capacity, but to work more economically in shorter batches. Dave tells us: “A change in the way schools work needed to be printed prompted us to get the Frontier 570. These days we need to be able to run off prints in smaller jobs, and the Frontier is perfectly suited to that. It replaces a number of roll-to-roll printers that we had. You’d print something-hundred feet of paper on one, then you’d go and process it, then you’d cut it. That used to suit quite a lot of schools work. But you’d waste a four meter paper advance every time you cut, so you couldn’t for instance just do one 10x8in print in a hurry. With the Frontier, when you want a 10x8in print, it just comes out, there’s no waste.”

Supporting innovation

Larger schools photography businesses tend to serve an established and relatively static customer base that doesn’t demand much change. They generally offer a standard range of products that changes little over time. For them, introducing new products could be disruptive. Smaller operations, on the other hand, can have more to gain from change than to lose by it. They depend more on continual business development, and on differentiating themselves from the competition. This is where innovation happens.

Software can be a key to innovation. Dave Clarke uses LiteBox Schools from Fujifilm. He used it to pioneer composite group images with children’s names underneath their pictures. He tells us: “I wouldn’t say we’ve invented the product, but there are very few photographers doing this in Scotland. It has gone down well with a number of schools, though of course there are some where the parents prefer not to share their children’s names.”

Dave has also introduced letterbox format panorama images, composited from informal group shots of class members. He innovates in his papers and finishes too, exploiting sizes and surfaces you can only get on a wet lab. He prints the panoramas on distinctive Fujicolor Crystal Archive Digital Pearl paper, for a high-gloss pearlescent surface effect. And he prints his proof cards on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Writable paper, to make it easy for parents to fill in their order forms. This differentiates his products from work produced at larger schools labs, where issues of market demand, cost versus volumes and trade price sensitivity may restrict the choice of papers.

Dunns Imaging Group’s trade schools service is also standardised on the Fujicolor Crystal Archive family of papers. Gary Denham says: “It’s quality paper and we get the right results on it, it’s consistent. When you’ve got Fujifilm Frontiers, it’s the obvious choice if you want that consistency.”

For efficiency

Fujifilm schools solutions enable efficient data and image capture on Fujifilm S5 Pro DSLR cameras, equipped with barcode readers. Fujifilm LiteBox Schools Image Data Link can use this information directly, to greatly increase the efficiency of data capture on site. Dave Clarke says: “The S5 is the near-perfect schools camera. We were one of the first to buy into the S-series. The S1 was the first affordable camera that gave you good jpeg files straight off the camera. I’ve always loved cameras made by Fujifilm because, being a film company, they know how to make colours look good. Image Data Link enables me to use a barcode scanner that’s attached to the bottom of an S5. It has made the data capture extremely easy. It doesn’t impact at all on the speed of taking the pictures at the school.”

For flexibility

Fujifilm Photo Imaging has all the expertise you need, and all the elements to choose from, to tailor a schools solution specifically for your business. That’s what sets the UK’s leading provider of imaging solutions off from the competition. Fujifilm schools solutions have the flexibility to provide a solution that’s the right size, adapts to your regional needs, and accommodates your choice of add-on services.

Dave Clarke explains some of the options he uses with Fujifilm LiteBox Schools: “There’s actually a number of different software packages used by schools. In England the main one is SIMS. LiteBox is compatible with that. But in Scotland we also have another one called Phoenix. Phoenix is used by all but one of the Education Authorities here. LiteBox Schools also integrates with Phoenix, and that’s essential for secondary school work. Also, we’ve currently just added the ROES interface so that we’re now printing other photographers’ work, and that dovetails into the LiteBox workflow as well.”

For schools photography and printing, it’s Fujifilm

Fujifilm Photo Imaging is the outstanding choice of solutions provider for schools photography and printing businesses. Based in Bedford, the company has a long heritage in professional photography, and contains the expertise and knowledge to tailor a comprehensive end-to-end schools solution specifically for you. The company prides itself on striving to know your business almost as well as you do. That’s why schools photography and printing chooses Fujifilm.