Has anyone here been successful getting transparencies printed of movie posters for backlit applications ?

I have some that I'd love to use that predate the double sided period. I have the scans.

Art

You might be able to go to a Kinkos or better yet, a specialized printing company in order to achieve this. The may have an issue with copyright, but I'm sure you can find someone.

My friend works in a print house, I'll ask him if he knows.

Richard

I've heard great things about this printing company, though I haven't used them for anything yet. Not sure if they can do transparencies, though.

http://www.whcc.com/

Places like Sign a Rama can do it too. There may be a good Printing Service Bureau that would have good sign printers. Hopefully your scans are in super high resolution.

Art, check with Aimee over at www.hollywoodmarquees.com they're in Ann Arbor.

The scans are of sufficient quality to be printed . Kinko's in Portage refused to do it.

Art

Why did they refuse to do it? I would lean toward taking it to an independently owned print shop. If they don't have the equipment to do it, they should at least be able to tell you who does oversized color printing in your town.

I think what you're looking for specifically is a light-collimating film, which most printers are going to know simply as "backlit display material". Try calling around to various print shops in town and ask them if they do large format printing. Then tell them you need it on a "backlit display material". They should be able to quote you over the phone. On a walk-in consumer basis, you'll probably pay somewhere between four and five dollars a square foot. But often, there will be one or two guys in town that do absolutely nothing but large-format printing, usually doing farmed-out work from the rest of the shops in town. They'll give you the best prices.

Good luck with it! Let me know if they try to charge you a setup fee. I could probably provide you the right type of file to avoid that type of thing.

Some of the wide-format printers do better than others for Backlit material. The best I have seen was done with a Solvent based sign printer. It was able to lay down thick ink that kept good contrast with light going through it.

I have an Epson Pro 60" that does a pretty good job, but is not the best I have seen.

Around here the places that print on backlit film charge about 5-6/per sq. foot + plus and initial setup charge. Can't remember how much it was for the last one we did.

There was one other thing that was cool that I saw with a service bureau. They used a film that mounted to a thick piece of plexiglass. It made a cool backlit display that was 5x6 feet. It did cost about $400 though.