Customers often ask, which type of backlit film will yield the best black color? Or, they often ask in terms of, how black is Duratrans?
First, allow me to clarify Blue River Digital’s definition of “Duratrans”. To many, the term “duratrans” refers to any backlit graphic film that can be imaged with color artwork. This is partially accurate, and may be useful in lay conversation.
For purposes of the question about blacks, I would like to clarify that when a customer orders Duratrans backlit film on our website www.blueriverdigital.com, they’re getting a photographic film that is optically exposed (laser) and chemically developed, similar to old-school photographic film. Some of the advantages of this process include improved color saturation and resolution, over the competing “inkjet” (non-photographic) process, which we also offer as “Economy Inkjet”.
As a chemically-developed film, when you image part of a Duratrans as black, the film is fully emulsified at the black point (for those in photography, the black point has a very high D-max in the 3.7 range). The emulsion simply blocks any light that would pass through. The result is a black similar to a gloss automotive paint, in depth and richness. Mathematically, there is still a bit of light that makes it through even the emulsion, but Duratrans is the process of choice for all high-end commercial and fine art backlit graphics, because of the superior contrast and saturation. Black-accented artwork on Duratrans is very striking and appealing because of this.
To my knowledge there is actually only one, hand-crafted process commercially available for backlit graphics that can compete with Duratrans for black opacity, and it’s got other limitations, not the least of which is price. If you have a very large backlit image to produce and you need the world’s absolute best, solid black in large coverage areas, please call us at 800-706-4276 and ask for Dave Cole, to discuss the hand-crafted super-opacity backlit alternative.
As for the Economy Inkjet backlit product, it is inferior to Duratrans when it comes to blacks for the simple reason that black ink is not fully opaque, as is the emulsion coating on a Duratrans. The properties of ink that require it to be viscous and transmissive work against the opacity vector to result in a somewhat-compromised blackness with all backlit inkjet films (regardless of what the fabricator may say), noticeable mostly in solid black areas, especially if they’re large.
Hopefully this will help with the decision process for you, in evaluating backlit film alternatives.