High-speed processing unit to open in Dublin

The first, high-speed consumer service for processing photography digitally will be launched late next month when Photologic enters the retail sector.

Its new retail arm, Image Depot, will open its first branch on Liffey Street in Dublin, where it will offer a 10-minute film processing service. The service will extend to traditional 35mm film as well as prints, negatives, slides, floppy disk and zip drive images. If extended, the service could pose considerable competition to existing photo processing outlets, which currently only offer film production services within one hour.

Despite rapid developments in digital camera technology, and increasing take-up by home consumers, this is the first time a high-speed commercial service has been made available for quality digital prints. Until now most users have simply viewed their digital photography online, or printed images out on lower quality colour printers. Now customers can e-mail their images to Image Depot for colour printing.

Photologic, which has operated in the Republic as a photographic equipment wholesaler for the past four years, was prompted to open its first retail branch following enquiries about digital photography services.

"To date no-one has taken digital cameras seriously in retail stores. We intend to specialise in the sale of digital cameras, and become a one-stop-shop for all digital products," says Mr David Evans, Photologic retail operations manager.

If successful, Photologic plans to open further Image Depot outlets around the Republic, at a rate of about two per annum. Mr Evans says Image Depot plans to charge £9.99 to develop 36 exposure films in 10 minutes. For customers willing to wait longer periods the charge will be lower. According to Ms Jacinta Daly, general manager of Photologic, this is the first time such technology has been deployed in the Republic. The new service is based on Japanese technology, the Konica Digital Minilab. The machine will process high speed prints on photographic paper from any medium. Image Depot customers will also be able to view their images as they are being processed through the Minilab, and choose colour enhancements, text additions, crops, enlargements and borders before the prints are output.

According to Ms Daly: "People are not aware of all the things they can do with their pictures, so part of this venture will be an education process for customers."