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.
Photography and Printing 