Re: filmscanners: Nikon 8000 ED or Polaroid Sprintscan 120 ??

["Dicky" <corbettr@dircon.co.uk>]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Michael Moore" <miguelmas@qwest.net>

To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>

Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 4:19 AM

Subject: Re: filmscanners: Nikon 8000 ED or Polaroid Sprintscan 120 ??

> Richard: I have been a pro for more than 35 years, owned a lab and sold off my
> darkroom equipment long ago. I know where my time is most valuable.

 

And no doubt you do...but... you are something of a one-man-band, or a solo operator if you like and I have been attempting to discuss professional scanning as a separate business where one man bands hardly exist if ever.

 

You just keep on doing whatever you do and jolly good luck to you my friend, however the economics of high end drum scanners would mitigate against people like you simply because you would be unlikely to be able to finance such a device or obtain a reasonable return on capital.

You might, of course, buy a reconditioned machine but, as is the way in such matters, it would probably be quite old and maintenance would cost a penny or two.

 

Modern high end drum scanners are not made for clever tricks or creative people anymore, but for volume production where printing is the ultimate destination and page make-up the main purpose.

 

The drum scanner is required in order to digitise analogue film or flat copy as quickly and as accurately as possible from any size original up to A3, with enlargement as high as 20X, so that high volume page make-up requirements can be satisfied economically.

 

Output can be from A3 pages( two to view) up to eight to view film sets with screen rulings from 150line up to 300 screen i.e A1 film size.

 

Imagesetters and RIP's are generally the processing tools these days and fancy creative work is costed out at a price - a high price - proportional to the labour time used and is carried out on either a desktop computer or a much more sophisticated page make-up workstation incorporating massive computer processing power.

 

Sci-Tex from Israel being probably the best known creative workstation provider today although for really flashy creative work the Quantel Graphics Paintbox would turn a few heads and a few bank balances as well at around £300,000 a time.

Mind you it does take in Dainippon modified files scanned at massive resolution such as to provide 300mb for an A4 image.

Displayed on a 48" high res Japanese monitor one might be forgiven if one had something of a turn when observing the detail in a jewellery catalogue page.

 

If you want photographic quality then that's the business and if you wish massive creative functions it would leave Photoshop standing. Mind you would have to be something of an artist - in creative terms - in order to avail yourself of all it's many facilities.

 

You are confusing the issues related to single self employed photographers with another industry entirely.

 

The book you refer to is of course John Paul Caponigro's "Adobe Photoshop Master Class" and as you have reminded me of something I had forgotten I thank you, because as a future solo operator myself I will almost certainly need to obtain a copy - once I have decided which film scanner to buy.

 

Now I think we had better end this thread as it is of little or no interest to anyone else but ourselves and anyway I believe we may well have worked the theme to death.

 

Richard Corbett