[filmscanners] RE: Re:A scanner question

["LAURIE SOLOMON" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

>Occasionally I feel compelled to point out that there is no visible
difference in printed images
true for the most part but with notable exceptions.

>I assumed Tom was using an inkjet printer to make his "historic photo
archive" prints.

While this may be true for the prints that he is making now that he is using
an inkjet printer, the specs for inkjet printers may change over the years
in the future requiring greater or lesser input resolutions and or bit
depths for better quality hard outputs as might the sorts, nature and sizes
of the hard copy prints that he wishes to make from his archived digital
image files on the inkjet printer.  Moreover, in the future, he may wish to
make prints from those archived digital image files using devices other than
an inkjet printer, thus requiring an archived digital image file which
offers the greatest potential flexibility.

But more to the point the original question really focused on the production
of archivable digital image files which can be kept in an archive and used
to create working digital image files which would be the ones that would be
generated and sent to specific dedicated output devices and which meet the
maximium demands of those output devices.  I am not sure that one would want
to maintain an archive of merely digtial working image files without also
mataining a more general archive of original scanned files containing the
maximium data possible even if it is not currently useable.

>One reason I advocate smaller, compressed files for archive is that I
>think the weak link in today's digital workflow is the scanner

I am not sure that I completely agree that the scanner is the weak link or
even the main weak link in the work flow.  I believe there are a number of
equally significant weak links; and the scanner may be the lesser of them
( if the user is willing to spend the time and money to get the best scanner
available and learn how to use it).  The scanner tends to become a
significant weak link because practical concerns enter into the picture and
many users seek to get the biggest bang for the least amount of money and
which functions in a turnkey manner which does not require too much fiddling
with and adjusting on a scan to scan basis.

-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Preston Earle
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 3:42 PM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Re:A scanner question


"LAURIE SOLOMON" <laurie@advancenet.net> wrote: "I am inclined to agree
with you on several of your points. . . . However, if you are archiving
the scans for future unknown final uses, to scan at the highest bit
depth and optical resolution for archiving purposes on CDs or DVDs and
the like does make some sense in that it gives you the maximuium
information with which to work with at that future date for the purposes
at hand given what might be the then current requirements and specs of
applications and devices."
-------------------------

I, too, feel like we are more in agreement than disagreement. It is
pretty much a free world, and folks can use as much or as little storage
as they choose for their archived images. Occasionally I feel compelled
to point out that there is no visible difference in printed images (I
assumed Tom was using an inkjet printer to make his "historic photo
archive" prints.) from a medium-compression JPEG files of adequate
resolution and their TIFF brothers, but sometimes it's a lonely battle
<G>.

One reason I advocate smaller, compressed files for archive is that I
think the weak link in today's digital workflow is the scanner. The
original scan is probably the thing that will be improved most in the
future, so saving many gigabytes of original scans doesn't seem so
critical. I don't think we will be rescanning all the thousands of old
slides and negatives we may currently have archived, but we might rescan
the best ones, the "keepers", when desktop filmscanners begin to achieve
significantly better performance, like better shadow-end penetration
with less noise, fewer artifacts, etc.

Preston Earle
PEarle@triad.rr.com


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title
or body


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body