In the past, Kodak was the only brand that stuck to people when talking about photography. It is so popular that people often refer to candid photo shots as “Kodak moments.” In the Philippines, “Kodakan” is slang for taking pictures but is rarely used today.

The film-based photography business that Kodak was dominated is gradually disappearing with the proliferation of digital cameras and mobile phones with integrated camera functions. In addition, inexpensive photo printers allow people to print only the photos they wanted and not an entire roll of film. There are also online services that allow users to upload their photos. As a result, photo-printing shops are finding it harder to sustain their business.

Kodak has adopted new digital printing technologies because of the expected increasing demand for shop-based photo printing. The volume of shop-based printing has increased with more Filipinos being able to purchase cheap digital cameras and camera-ready phones. Photo printing shops have remained a viable business with home printers available and competition from Internet cafes that offer photo-printing services.

The Print Space has extended their do-it-yourself photographic printing process to the Internet. theprintspace.com will be the first online service to incorporate an easy to use professional color management process. It enables accurate soft proofing of images by clients on their own systems using bespoke print profiles.

The Print Space originated as Europe’s first walk-in DIY professional photographic printing lab. They were launched in 2007 and based in Shoredfich, occupying two floors of a 4,000 square foot area comprising of exhibition space, for-hire retouching and scanning booths, and large format printers. Their philosophy is to equip the customer with the knowledge and resources to get creative with high-spec professional imaging equipment.

theprintsource.com acts like a professional standard, fully color-managed print studio on your desktop by presenting a web interface for its creative print process. The site offers online articles and also face-to-face consultations from in-house color management and print technicians. A key feature of the website is the color management and profiling tutorials, which are available to stream or download.

Kodak of the United States and Fuji of Japan are two international photography organizations that have survived digital technology. Digital technology has made film photography obsolete. For example, digital cameras are built in to most cellular phones. The film camera has all but disappeared from stores and it may be soon supplanted as a major tool of movie makers. Full-length quality movies are being made by producers using hand-held digital cameras.

Haloid, a company making photographic papers in Rochester, New York, decided to fund the research for a dry copier. The basic method was invented by Chester Carlson, a patent agent, and the result of the research was the Xerox machine. When the Xerox patent ran out in 1982, it was suddenly faced with a host of competitors, among them the Fuji organization. Fuji was the first company licensed by Xerox to produce its copiers.

Today it is the Xerox technology among others that has kept Fuji growing when its color photographic film was pushed out by digital photography. With the rise of the personal computer, a need for faster copiers to match the speed of the text production of PCs led to the creation of laser printers. Small printing machines were developed that became useful for small-run requirements not big enough to require a regular printing job.

The Print Space offers instructions on its web site on subjects ranging from monitor calibration to building color profiles and soft-proofing at home, enabling users at any level to learn more about color management. In addition to Epson Giclee (inkjet) prints, theprintspace.com offers affordable digital C-Type prints that are genuine wet lab prints exposed by a real photographic process.

The Print Space’s digital C-type professional photographic prints are produced on a Chromira, which is a professional quality, color-managed, high resolution print device producing exhibition quality archival prints suitable for the professional art market on Fuji Crystal Archive and Kodak Professional paper. A straightforward web ordering process allows clients to send disks to the lab or to upload digital files directly via a built-in secure file transfer system. Instead of waiting days for digital prints, files can be transferred, printed and returned within 72 hours.

The company’s ethos is to give creative control back to individuals and also give them access to the kind of high-end equipment which currently only the most successful photographic and creative companies can afford.