Canon imagePRESS fuels photo lab jobs in Kerala

Today the photo printing market of India is on rise as advanced digital colour presses like Canon imagePRESS series have revolutionised this segment into a new leap. Latest in the development includes two Kerala-based companies which have recently adopted Canon imagePRESS series in their endeavour to deliver finest photo prints. Thampy Thomas of Priya Color Lab and N Narayanan of Rathna Photo Emporium share their progressions following the adoptions of the digital colour presses in an exclusive chat with Print & Publishing. Be it preserving memories of vacations, occasions, anniversaries and other special moments in life in some ways or others, printing of innovative photo albums on non-tearable medias on digital presses is a trend these days. Taking on this trend are Priya Color Lab and Rathna Photo Emporium, two leading photo printing corners in Kerala, whose labs have recently been updated with Canon imagePRESS digital colour presses.

Continuing journeys

Thampy Thomas of Priya Color LabPriya Color Lab was established in the year 1980 with its business involved mainly into selling B/W photo films and chemicals. “As per the new trends surfaced across the region’s photo lab/printing market, we pulled alongside new activities which can meet the increasing demands for newer applications in this market segment,” said Thampy Thomas adding that the adoption of Canon imagePRESS C7010VP was the company’s deliberate decision to unleash their creativity in photo printing. “Around 90 percent of our overall activities is now involved with photo printing,” Thampy further mentioned.

Similarly, the establishment of Rathna Photo Emporium as a brainchild of R Natarajan dates back to the 1980s. In the first place, the company’s overall tasks comprised just compilation job of photo books and framing jobs. “As long as the changes in market are concerned, we’d like to mention our landmark entry into the photo printing around four months back with the installation of Canon imagePRESS C6010,” asserted N Narayanan.

Unique attributes

Machine portfolio of Priya Color Lab consists of other equipments like Xerox DocuColor 242. “But the addition of Canon imagePRESS C7010VP makes us capable to print Duplex jobs (to print both sides of a page in a single pass) on varieties of medias and hence produces light weight photo albums, which is perhaps the latest trend in the contemporary photo printing market,” mentioned Thampy. This Canon imagePRESS series prints A4 sized jobs at 60 ppm and 70ppm consistently, regardless of the weight of media, in 1200 x 1200 dpi.

On choosing the Canon imagePRESS, N Narayanan mentioned that the newly installed Canon imagePRESS C6010 at Rathna Photo Emporium has a real colour production performance, backed by world-class Oce support and its double-side printing technology in a single pass is unique. “Now we are into a very beginning stage of our photo and poster printing activities which we believe to be grown in a bigger way soon as we see a good future prospect in this segment,” said N Narayanan.

Satisfactory outputs

Kerala is witnessing increase in demands for photo album printing. Canon has successfully installed Canon imagePRESS series across the state where the Canon engine is being used exclusively for photo printing to satisfy new and innovative ways of preserving memories in the form of albums for customers from different walks of life. “Our customers include photo labs, professional photographers, individuals and others. For them we print around 600 photos per day on Canon imagePRESS C7010VP; but the count increases during the peak wedding seasons or festive times,” revealed Thampy. He added that the clientele of Priya Color Lab also consists of some regular customers from overseas destinations like Chicago, Dubai, etc.

In this context, N Narayanan mentioned that the profiles of his customers are predominantly of professional freelance photographers and walk-in individuals. “Sometimes we could deliver around 8-10 complete photo albums a day. In addition to photo printing, we are also into A3 sized poster printing and other small jobs like business cards, brochures, etc,” he added. N Narayanan stressed on Rathna Photo Emporium’s all-time endeavour to satisfy their customers with the help of latest technologies sprouting in the industry, from time to time.