Winning combination at MPS

When Jeff Heads, lab manager at MPS Photographic in Newcastle entered the Fujifilm/PPLA Colour Printer Awards 2004 it was, by his own admission, a case of ‘send the entry in and keep your fingers crossed!’

But as he soon discovered, his expert skills in both hand printing and digital retouching were to land him not one, but two prestigious awards.

“It was the first time that I’d entered the Colour Printer Awards and I was curious to test my skills against the best in the industry,” said Jeff.

“Although I am the Lab Manager it is very much a “hands on” role and I need to be able to do every job in the lab. Learning the digital skills was a new challenge, having spent many years in the darkroom environment I found that they enhanced the skills needed to produce exceptional hand prints.

“Since the acquisition of our large format Lightjet 5000 photographic printer, a lot of our work is now done digitally, including a significant amount of manipulation, and I’ve found my knowledge of traditional printing - particularly colour balance, composition, dodging and burning in - a real benefit when working on the digital briefs. “I was delighted to win not one, but two Awards, and will definitely be entering again this year. We posted details of the award wins onto our website and have the certificates in the lab - not only do they catch people’s attention, but they reassure
them that they are getting the highest level of quality too.”

Jeff took 2nd place in the Land, Sea & Air category of the Hand Printing Award, together with 3rd place in the Digital Retouching category for his interpretation of Peter Dazeley’s Nautilus x-ray image.