Today's Guest: John Massman of Logix,Inc. in Livonia, Michigan
Today's Host: Damien Allen
Listen to this Show
Publish this Show on Your Website
Show Sponsor www.morephotos.com
Logix, Inc.
John Massman Transcript Page
John Massman Expert PageANNOUNCER:This VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight is brought to you by morephotos.com helping professional photographers with all their internet needs. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight.
DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. My name is Damien Allen, and today we are at the Great Lakes Institute of Photography Show at Northwestern Michigan College, and we're are speaking with John Massman of Logix,Inc., located in Livonia, Michigan. Good afternoon and welcome to the show, John.
JOHN: Hi.
DAMIEN: So you're here at the Great Lakes Institute of Photography Show. So what did you bring with you, and why are you here?
JOHN: Well, these customers here have been loyal customers of ours for a long time. We like coming in and showing them the latest, greatest products. I've got with me today an Epson 3800 printer. Epson has a complete product line of professional photographic printers for photographers. They are capable of professional lab quality prints that they can produce right in their own studios and offices as opposed to having to send the work out to labs. So there's a lot of versatility for professional photographers to offer quick, fast turn around time without sacrificing quality and not only are the printers very reasonable in cost, but the cost of output is usually far less than what they're paying for professional lab prints.
DAMIEN: How many prints can this turn out in an hour?
JOHN: A printer like this will turn out about thirty 8x10s an hour.
DAMIEN: Wow. In looking at the quality of the photos here; they look very clear and very sharp.
JOHN: They are. And great variety of paper substrates as well. Matte papers, luster type surfaces, glossy papers, and you can even print directly on canvases, water color papers, art type papers, and I have a lot of photographers who use these printers strictly for the art type applications where they want to deliver a different kind of product to their customers. That's a water color type print where they've gone in and done paint type effects to say a child's portrait, turned it into a water color painting and it's not actually even printed on water color paper as opposed to looking like a photograph of a water color painting.
DAMIEN: Wow. Good deal. So Logix has been a supplier of printers and papers, supply color management. How long have you been in business?
JOHN: We've been in business since 1976, and we've serviced the professional photographic markets that entire time. So we've been around a while. We know the market. Our staff are previous professional photographers so we've got some insight as to what our customer base wants and what they're quality needs are.
DAMIEN: So you're seeing more of a turn with Photoshop with getting water color effects, art based painting. Is this a trend that is going to continue to grow in the future do you think, or are we going to see changes in the paper and the printers and is it going to be more of the photographer's office based or is it going to be more labs?
JOHN: I think it's going to be more where the photographer is going to take control of his own output, because these printers every generation that comes out, I personally don't know how they can improve the quality much more than where it's at, because I can make a print out of a printer that's a $1,300 printer and lay it right next to a lab print that came from a $100,000 piece of lab printing equipment, and you can't tell the difference between the two no matter how closely you look. So I don't think they can really make too many more advances in terms of the quality level. What we are seeing is speeds are improving, productivity is improving, the whole color management equation is improving where what you see on your computer screen is what comes out of that printer the first time without making multiple prints, or trying to go back and make color corrections. So it has simplified the whole process of the professional photographer getting his output ready for customer delivery. And when that happens to the degree that it is, it means that you can come back from a wedding over the weekend, and literally, if you wanted to, retouch the pictures and have a finished wedding album delivered to a customer the next week. And that's an enormous competitive advantage compared to sending your stuff out to a lab.
DAMIEN: In deed.
JOHN: And that's what photographers need now. They need that competitive advantage...some way to set themselves aside from the competition.
DAMIEN: And work flow, and color management are probably the two biggest concerns when it comes to producing the photos for the end result for the client.
JOHN: Sure. Doing it in house and doing it quick is fine, but if you're going to sacrifice the quality, that's a deal killer, and we don't have to do that with Epson printers. These Epson machines produce wonderful color output and like I had mentioned before with the depth of the substrates that you can print on, you not only can deliver a photographic print, but you can deliver the water color prints and the canvas prints as well.
DAMIEN: I see you have a couple sample packs here...different types of photographic paper. What other lines do you carry besides the fine art and the photographic ink jet paper?
JOHN: Well we carry all of the Epson products for the printers, the papers, the canvases, matte papers, the different surfaces, plus all the inks for the printers. And we brought these samples packs in because the photographers like to be able to try different kinds of papers without having to, you know, who wants to buy 100 sheets of paper when you might look at a surface and decide that's not really what thought it was going to be. So this way with these sample packs we're handing out at the show, they can go back with half a dozen different kinds of paper and try them out on their own Epson printers.
DAMIEN: If somebody wants to learn more about the company and what you can receive from the company, where would they go?
JOHN: Well we are in Livonia, Michigan, and our 800 number is (800) GO LOGIX and also on the web at www.logix-usa.com. That will take you right to us.
DAMIEN: Thank you very much for spending time with us today, John.
JOHN: Damien, thank you.
DAMIEN: You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight.I'm Damien Allen and we will talk to you later, have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight; only www.vtalkradio.com on Radio for the 21st Century.