Service Bureaus for Digital Negs

dmilton@csus.edu
Wed, 05 Nov 1997 10:24:12 -0700

I see that several people on the list are having trouble finding service
bureaus that do good, consistent work. I guess we are fortunate in the
small town of Sacramento, CA. I think we have better bureaus than San
Francisco, 80 miles to the west.

There are at least two great bureaus in Sacramento that don't freak under
pressure:

InfoMania
916-852-5900

They have great equipment, however, I do not know how large (dpi wise)
their imagesetter is, but they do great scans.

The Electric Page
www.electricpage.com
916-737-3900

I use Electric Page simple because I have a 10-year working relationship
with them. They have a 4876 dpi imagesetter capable of 400 lines per inch
output. They also have a nice drum scanner.

If you are not used to working with a computer service bureau, please
understand that all of them have an incredible number of requirements that
must be fulfilled on your end. They are simply robots carrying out orders.
In other words, the file must be correct, in the correct format, or you
will not be satisfied with the results.

Call them, ask all the stupid questions now, not later, and admit that you
do not know what you are doing, or that you do not understand their
business. They will be glad to help, but I beleive that all of the bureaus
tend to think that everyone that calls them or hands them a job to do
understands computers as well as they do. They don't like mistakes either.

Just remember, with computers, Garbage Out Equals Garbage In Squared (GOGI
Squared). Do as the carpenters do: measure twice, cut once.

David P. Milton