digital to negatives

[egproductions]

I always thought that places like rite-aid or CVS actually make a c-print out of your digital files for printing. Apparently this is not true since I am trying to make negatives from my digital files and it is gonna be pricey. What type of proccessing do these pharmecies use for printing digital and is there a cheap and easy way to go from digital to negatives?

 

[khmuse]

The one hour machines offer a digital input that directly exposes the photographic paper (after an inversion of color and density). What you are talking about is a tape to film printer. This is a specialty item that you will only find in post houses and labs.

 

[Petrus]

Already for some years all printing has been done with digital printers. They use regular photographich printing paper for best quality and long life (100+ years). The printing is not done from neg with lens, but by scanning. Not only digital files are printed this way, but also old fashioned negatives, which are first scanned on the fly.

This actually results in better quality and resolution than optical printing. No focus/dust problems, easy color adjustements etc.