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Minneapolis Lab Uses New Technology To Bring The Past To Life

by Phyllis Cohen Stevens

From prehistoric times when dinosaurs roamed the earth to more recent North Pole expeditions by dogsled, ProColor has 'been there, done that.' Not literally, of course. But it was this 40-year-old Minneapolis lab that was responsible for the large-as-life backdrop murals surrounding the four-plus-million-year-old attractions in the new Science Museum of Minnesota.

"Our company has always been committed to being at the forefront of new technology to differentiate ourselves from other labs, particularly in the Twin Cities area, by giving our customers new and more efficient ways of servicing their needs," notes Dick Young, secretary/treasurer of ProColor.

"We're proud of our leadership role as pioneers in the industry. In the past 15 years alone, our extensive digital capabilities have given us many opportunities to venture into an even broader range of territories."

For example, ProColor was one of the few labs to go into the four-color short-to-medium-run printing business (up to 10,000 copies) with the purchase of a Heidelberg Quickmaster DI offset press. They were also one of the first to buy a CSI Lightjet 5000 printer and a Durst Lambda 130 large-format photographic digital printer, which proved indispensable in the mural imaging completed last year for the Science Museum. In addition, with its recent transition to an ESOP or partial-employee ownership arrangement, ProColor has given its staff an opportunity to share in the lab's equity, growth and success.

"Digital technology has had a profound impact on photography, and over the years we've had to examine and cultivate segments where there was potential for long-term growth and incremental business," states Tim Doe, ProColor's sales manager. "The printing industry, for instance, represents a multi-billion-dollar pie as opposed to the conventional photographic market in the Midwest where sales have been stagnating in the millions. It also seemed redundant to employ both analog and digital methodologies when we could do retouching, compositing, low and high-res scanning, black-and-white and color copy work more effectively and predictably with digital equipment and technology. Why bother with an additional step of a copy negative when you can easily scan and make modifications to a file and then go directly to a print? Which explains why we've cut back on our traditional photographic products and replaced most of our analog-type enlargers with more cost-effective scanning, film recording and digital output devices." It's a formula that seems to be working. Just ask any of the premier photographers, ad agencies, designers, small-to-medium sized corporations, retail establishments and museums, both local and from around the country, that ProColor counts among the 3000 active commercial accounts in its database.

The oldest and according to their literature, the "largest high-tech imaging center in the Midwest," ProColor was founded in 1959 by three friends, Howie Hanson, Rollie Rustad and Bob Sanders, from an idea they had three years before while league bowling. Like many great ideas, the lab began humbly enough in Rollie's basement, making dye transfers for Rollie's dad who was an art director at the famous ad agency BBD&O. According to the company's backgrounder, Bob was the one who insisted there was a need for a color lab in downtown Minneapolis, so the three took out loans on their old junker cars for $300 each, which they used to purchase a bunch of hard rubber and dump tanks, reels, hangers, E2, E3 and C22 kits and to rent 700 feet of space in the Minneapolis Times annex building. They also installed their own plumbing, built their own dryer and started practicing dip & dunk processing.

All three had other jobs in addition to the fledgling lab. But by 1961 they were devoting themselves to the lab full time, working seven days and nights each week and plowing any income they made back into the business.

There's more to the company history, but suffice it to say that in 1964 ProColor boasted 12 employees and 1,800 square feet of space. Today the custom lab is a full-service shop with a full-time staff of 120 in three locations totalling 47,000 square feet.

In the last 15 years, the company has invested several millions in advanced, high-end digital equipment, according to Young and Doe. In addition to the machinery mentioned above, ProColor's digital arsenal consists of an Optronics Colorgetter drum, Heidelberg Topaz and Kodak Photo and Pro Photo CD scanners; Lightjet 2000 and Sapphire 35mm film recorders; two Iris 3047s, two Xerox Docucolor 40 and Canon CLC 800 and 1000 laser and Bubblejet 2436, as well as Xerox DP65 black-and-white toner printers; over 80 MacIntosh and i-Mac workstations; a Kodak Image Magic Print Station; and a Dicomed Scanback digital camera.

ProColor has a vast array of services that it makes available to its customers. In the digital realm, for example, they offer photo CD and high-res scanning, CD archiving, digital retouching, large-format digital output, direct-to-plate digital printing, high-speed black-and-white printing, reproduction-quality digital printing, as well as 'museum-quality,' fine-art Iris prints.

"Printed on watercolor paper or canvas on the Iris digital printer, these giclee prints render such depth and texture to customers' images that it's difficult to distinguish them from the originals," says Doe. "By printing images directly on the Iris, each print is first-generation. We also use the most current inkset for archival image stability. This gives artists, photographers and designers another avenue for their work. And they can order the prints on an as-needed basis, which alleviates any problems associated with financing, storing and selling large runs of their limited-edition prints."

As of last July, ProColor also retired its inkjet and electrostatic printers and began relying on the Lightjet and Lambda for their printing needs. "In fact, anything bigger than a 20 x 24-inch print or transparency we'll produce digitally," asserts Doe. "These prints have enabled us to compete with the inkjet market by delivering sharper, cleaner, more true-to-life photographic prints at the same price as inkjet."

One of ProColor's most noteworthy recent projects are the 14 murals they created for the downtown St. Paul museum. They include such striking backdrops as the Ice Age and Itasca murals for the Mississippi River Gallery, the Triceratops and Diplodocus backdrops for the Dinosaur and Fossil Gallery and a black-and-white enlarged photo called "Ladies with Bombs" for the Collections Gallery. The displays range from 6 x 8 to 16 x 32 feet in size, and the Ice Age Mural includes three 8 x 10 foot dramatic rotating images.

Tim Doe took us through the challenges and steps involved to produce these innovative displays: