CHANGING FACE OF PHOTO PRINTING ANALOGUE, TO DIGITAL

In the analogue days, negatives were printed on silver halide paper. In other words, on to a light-sensitive paper. Almost every frame exposed on the photographic film got printed.

There used to be a term that photo labs used - AGO. This meant, as an instruction to the print technician to print "all good ones"! And then came digital cameras, smartphones with better cameras, the internet and social media. This formed an entire ecosystem that enabled making images at the click of a button, more often on a smartphone, and sharing them with the world much easier. The joy of sharing printed photographs in an old-world photo album was taken over by the digital pipeline. Even the video got included in digital sharing, which was not possible earlier in the analogue system. The analogue format just could not stand the novelty, speed and convenience of digital.

People thought photo printing was dead.

But this has not been the case. Digital printing largely took over the traditional light-sensitive, silver halide process.