Dickerman Prints photo lab in San Francisco is home to the world’s best photographic printer, the Polielettronica LaserLab. For the first time, take a look inside as the printer’s lasers activate photographic paper before sending it through a traditional bath of chemistry.

A state of the art silver-halide photographic printer and processor and the perennial winner of industry Best Photographic Printer awards, the Polie uses modulated red, green and blue lasers that converge to expose light onto photographic paper in as little as 15 seconds with perfect edge to edge quality and up to 281 trillion colors.

After the lasers have quite literally painted the image with light, the Fujicolor Crystal Archive paper goes through a series of precisely controlled chemicals to develop, bleach and stabilize the print. When the paper exits the Polie, this truly photographic print is dry, ready to hang and fade-free for at least 100 years. The quality of this process speaks for itself. But how is the quality? According to Polielettronica, “the word compromise does not exist… the maximum in terms of quality and productivity are the only possible targets.”

At Dickerman Prints, we love using our Polie for custom photographic printing. Our Print on Demand service makes this remarkable printer directly available to our customers to do their own printing. To learn more, please click here.