The Duratrans to Inkjet backlit hurdle

I think we are about to see lambda printers and Duratrans printers go away and make room for inkjet Duratrans printers.  Historically, Lambda printers have been more cost effective for high volume printing, but with new inkjet technology and lower material costs for inkjet, I think we will see large advertisers do the switch soon. It will take time as there is risk involved as always when switching from one product to another. The environmental impact from lambda printers should also affect this decision and push users towards the inkjet solution.

 

What do you think?

The facts on Duratrans

A duratrans is a print material used in some television news sets, theater designs as well as for retail backlit display printing applications such as bus stops, movie theatre signs, trade shows and by a wide variety of general retailers. Duratrans are also used to create the backgrounds that appear behind news presenters. Duratrans is short for Durable Transparency.

Duratrans is a brandname of Kodak. Very often used as a generic term for Backlit display prints for tradeshow and bus stop applications, and other retail applications. The generic term that for Movie and TV backdrops that are lit from behind is translites. Translites are normally from 15 to more than a hundred feet long and 12 -40 feet high. In most cases, translites are wider than they are tall. The translite image is printed or painted on a semi-transparent material such as polyester. This is then stretched perpendicular to the floor over an opening in the set’s wall designed for this purpose. This would typically be a door, a window, or a series of windows. Duratrans are always lit from behind using lights mounted perpendicular to the floor in the space between the set and studio wall, making the background well-lit and with the appearance of depth.

Translites are created by printing photographic images or computer rendered images onto the material using large-format printers. Many existing translites have been created by printing in a photographic darkroom by a mural enlarger projecting onto a wide strip of film. These pieces are assembled into the final size by seaming.

Duratrans is also the name of a common element used in tradeshow exhibits to display marketing material in a backlit format. The duratrans medium is manufactured by Kodak and is a comprised of a translucent plastic base and photographic emulsion. The current tradename from Kodak is Enduratrans.

The specific tradename for a background printed on Duratrans film by Pacific Studios, Inc. is Chromatrans. They printed these conventionally in the world’s largest darkroom until 2007. They now produce them by a laser imaging printer.

While the Duratrans term refers to a specific photographic process as well as to a product, it has also become a general reference to any backlit printed imagery whether produced photographically or by other digital process such as inkjet printing. Inkjet prints can be a way to save time and money, as the duratrans printing process is both time demanding and costly. However, expect to see a difference in the result. You can receive just as a good result from the inkjet process if the printer uses the right material

Some of the information above is taken from Wikipedia.

More on the Duratrans Process

The Kodak trademarked Duratrans process is a photographic process (not a print process) which is costly and hard to come across these days. There are alternative, digital print processing techniques that yield results that are comparable and visually even better. The material used in the print process varies, but it is usually an opaque, transparent film which is water and UV resistant, and archival grade ink colors. There are online stores where you can upload your image file, and they will process it for you and send it back to you a few days later.

Duratrans

Duratrans And Backlit Display Prints

In this blog, I figured I’d keep the world informed on the ins an outs of backlit diplay printing, duratrans and how it works.  After having done a fair amount of research, it seems there is a lot of confusion about what duratrans is, how it differs from printing on similar material, what quality is required for different applications, etc. Since Duratrans itself is a very costly material, it might be worthwhile investigating some alternative, cheaper material that will yield the same visual result.

Here are a few other resources for duratrans information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duratran

http://duratrans.com/ (note: this is Kodak’s own site

Duratrans is a trademarked term by Kodak, which simply stands for Durable Transparency. The word really describes a process using specific materials, rather than the print itself. However, in general the word is used widely to describe the film that is used in backlit displays like the ones you have seen at the cinema, the bus stop, airports, etc. Since a lot of the applications are in outdoors locations, the actual backlit displays are usually weather proof and has UV protection. A lot of manufacturers of the materials used in the process are wisely using archival grade colors and paper / film.

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