Photo labs start going digital

The commercial segment is driving the photo printing market. Photo labs are starting to go digital but there’s a long way to go

Alok Bharadwaj feels that the industry is seeing the beginnings of a ‘digital’ transformation, similar to what happened in office automation and IT two years ago

The Indian market for photo printers grossed Rs 24 crore in FY 2002-03 (Source: IDC India). The top three vendors are HP, Epson and Canon—in that order. All these vendors are targeting the studio lab segment; HP is also quite upbeat about the home segment. "The more than 100,000 small studio labs are the first target for all brands," says Suresh Govindachari, business manager-Consumer Products, Epson India. Industry estimates put photo printer sales at over 10 percent of inkjets sold in India. Average unit values are in the range of Rs 10,000-12,000. That’s a far cry from the first commercial photo printer, a dye sublimation model that sold for a then breakthrough price of $595 (around Rs 28,000). The technology’s changed too, with today’s photo printers being colour inkjets with a few extra colours—different vendors call them by different names, but broadly speaking, photo printers add two (or three) more colours. These are typically a second lot of Cyan and Magenta and sometimes black.

"There are two different markets—photographers are adopting digicams and there is the home market. Both segments are growing," says Barkha Deva, country category manager, Emerging Products at HP India.

In every market there’s a point where something fundamental changes. In the photography business, digital is just coming into focus. After years of digital products offering poor quality for ridiculous prices, things are finally starting to go in the favour of digital equipment vendors.

Alok Bharadwaj, director and GM, Consumer Imaging & Information Division (CIID) & Volume products, Canon India says, "The digital era is touching the Rs 3,000 crore photo industry, which is almost entirely analogue at present. We are seeing the beginnings of a transformation similar to what we saw in office automation and IT two years back. Today most copiers or fax machines sold are digital."

On the one hand you have the image acquisition business. 3 million cameras sell in India every year. Only 80,000 of these are digicams, which is significant as you are far more likely to use a photo printer at home if you own a digicam. Scanning and printing isn’t half as convenient.

Taking a byte out of photo processing

Developing & printing is where the digital photo printing action is. Photo labs are converting to digital—slowly, and for functions where quick turnarounds are critical. There are 1 lakh photo studios in the country, of which 3,000 are digital—they have digicams, photo printers and film scanners. The developing and printing segment is worth Rs 3,000 crore and the big three players in inkjet printing have their eye on this market segment.

To understand where digital fits in, you must first look at the equipment being used by most photo labs today. Vendors such as Kodak have digital printing machines that take inputs from floppies, CDs, MMC and compact flash. These are high end machines costing Rs 20 lakh onwards and the bulk of photo printing in this country happens on these Silver Halide machines. There are 1,200 Kodak Express Labs out there.

Smaller studio labs that can’t afford to buy Silver Halide printers mostly use photo printers. Small photo studios today send film rolls to larger ones for photo processing. Photo printers do away with the ‘mainframe’ [centralised] culture.

The initial investment into a digicam and photo printer combination is low for studios but running costs are higher, says Suresh Govindachari

The initial investment into a digital solution is lower (the digicam and photo printer combination works out to less than Rs 50,000). Running costs are higher, however. "It balances out [capital investment vs. running cost]," says Govindachari.

Photo labs need five pieces of equipment to put together a complete solution—digital camera, photo printer, film scanner, PC and software. Most photo studios are opting for assembled PCs.

Large photo labs also have a place for digital photo printers. They use them to supplement silver halide printing machines for tasks where quick turnaround time is critical (passport photos). Vendors are targeting the Polaroid and location photography market.

Consumers prefer entry-level inkjets

While the commercial segment is going in for six-colour photo printers, consumers prefer conventional inkjets. A4 colour inkjet printers are used to print documents and photos. "These two categories are merging. Take C41SX for photo printing—only a professional can tell the difference," says Govindachari.

"The consumer segment is very small with early adopters who are rich or tech savvy going in for digital photography," says Bharadwaj.

New market segments

Specialisation appears to be the name of this particular game. Epson offers specialised printers such as the SP900 that prints onto a CD. "Videographers don’t have a solution at present for putting wedding images onto a VCD cover," says Govindachari.

Security is an emerging application. With airlines planning to photograph passengers as they check in, to confirm that the same person boards the aircraft, instant printing applications are mushrooming. This is an area where print quality isn’t as important as speed. Entry-level inkjets are good for printing ID photographs. "Software companies are using our printers to print passport photographs without a PC," says Govindachari.