West Coast Imaging

Rich Seiling says years of experience have taught him what photographers need from high-end digital printing--that's why he went into business.

A pro photographer since the mid eighties and former assistant curator of the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite, Seiling recently opened West Coast Imaging with the goal of offering photographers the best prints his unique experience could provide.

"I began working with digital when it all started, and I knew it was going to be the next thing, so I learned all I could about it," says Seiling. "As curator of the gallery, I dealt with many traditional artists, and some asked me to help them with digital. I would lend a hand here and there, and then it all took off."

Working out of his garage at the time, Seiling and wife Susan decided in 1999 to move from Yosemite to nearby Oakhurst and go into digital printing full time. Today, West Coast Imaging boasts a staff of six and a client list that includes museums, galleries and such names as car shooter Rick Rusing (Lexus, Infiniti), award-winning landscape photographer Jack Dykinga and wildlife photographer Frans Lanting, to name a few. "Our entire staff is made up of professional photographers who can communicate digital printing into the language artists need," says Seiling.

On the technology end, West Coast Imaging offers the Tango Drum scanner, one of the best photographic scanners delivering excellent detail in originals with its 4.2 D-Max, ColorSync Profiles, and 10,780 true dpi. Images can be burned to CD for $10 or saved to JAZ or ZIP disk. Fujix 8x10 prints and larger formats are also available.

Other services include commercial and exhibition Lightjet prints, as well as the next step up to museum quality. After making the initial print, West Coast provides fujix reprints on the Fuji Pictograph 3000 with images on 8.5x11 inch paper. This size works well for portfolio pages, gifts and more. The Fujix is also used as a proofing machine.

Says Seiling, "We send the targeted file through a Lightjet 2000, which prints directly onto film. The end result looks as if it was exposed in your camera--but it has all of the dodging and burning corrections of your master file."

For the future, Seiling says West Coast will grow into more and different avenues of digital imaging including archival inks and new ways of scanning and printing. The lab's focus, however, will stay right where it is: on photographers.

Rich and Susan started the company out of their home in Yosemite Valley (which had no garage). It was a home that Ansel and Virginia Adams built, and lived in periodically.
The Seilings moved to Oakhurst and pursued West Coast Imaging full time in 1998. West Coast Imaging has been in business since 1997.
The Lightjet 2000, which is referred to at the end of the article, prints onto film, and is rarely used anymore. A lot has changed since then. Now most of our prints are made on the Chromira, which prints onto Type C photographic paper.