about the vault

The Vault was established seven years ago as a pro photo lab servicing the imaging industry including professional photographers, amateur photographers, students and design companies. The lab continues to provide a film service with an E6, C41 and B&W line. The lab has gone through transitions to become a digital imaging lab. An Epson 9800 produces fine art gicleŽ prints as well as canvas and photo art prints. Another Epson printer is dedicated to black and white printing. High quality scans are produced on a Fuji flatbed scanner with retouching by experienced staff.

One of the key benefits of using The Vault is the experienced technicians who have a professional eye for detail. It is an opportunity to get the best out of your photography and digital imaging. Quality has vastly improved in digital printing and, using the best inks and paper available, The Vault operates a sophisticated production line.

Artists have benefited from using the lab. We copy paintings, drawings and any flat artwork onto 5x4 transparency (slide film) with accurate rendition of colour. This film is then scanned to produce reproduction quality digital files. From this file the artist can produce fine art prints on a selection of papers. The artist normally views small sample prints to check colour and quality. It's a collaborative process once the scanning is done. The required adjustments can be made using photoshop manipulation.

Students receive a discount on our services. That's not the only benefit. Photography students benefit in the long run from building a relationship with a professional digital imaging lab. Pro photographers need a lab that understands how they work and what their particular requirements are. The Vault is also able to support photographers with information about the latest digital printing inks and papers, adjusting files to get the best prints, the most recent films and how to shoot to get the best results.... the list is endless. The Vault has a good understanding of the photography business in general due to the number of professional wedding photographers, commercial and advertising photographers, portrait and fine art photographers that pass through the lab.

Students use The Vault to produce display prints for exhibition and degree shows as well as normal course work. Printing digital files from CD is a popular service for architectural students. Illustration students bring their artwork to be scanned...

David Lane, the Director of The Vault, has been visiting numerous trade shows this year as far afield as Seattle. We are developing and overview of the digital imaging industry so that we plan for the next five years. It's not so much that technology is changing but how the image making public is responding to it whether they are pro image makers or not. After visiting Focus on Imaging in Birmingham David decided to purchase a bookbinding machine. We are currently testing different printing papers and mounting possibilities on the machine.

More to come...