I note many images in photo books are shot with cromes and then shown as prints in the book. Note Brian Bower used alot of Kodak 25. My question is what process do they use to get such true and brilliant color in the prints in the books, keeping so much of the light, contrast and saturation of the original slide. When I get prints made from slides, I seem to loose alot. My processor tells me the only way to do it now is to have the slide, professionally scanned using very expensive equipment onto a cd or disk, then processed in the new digital processors. The problem is the scans run about $50 each. Any thoughts?

-- Bob Haight (rhaigh5748@aol.com), November 28, 2001

Answers

Traditionally, magazines (and, presumably book publishers) have used prepress houses that use high-end drum scanners to scan the transparencies, and do the CYMK separations needed for printing. Drum scanners offer higher resolution and greater density range (D-Max) than consumer-grade scanners available to us mere mortals. However, the quality of the scan and the resulting printed image is still in the hands of the person running the scanner, and his/her attention to how closely the scan matches the original.

Smaller scanners, however, are starting to rival drum scanners in resolution and D-Max, and can produce work that is quite good. Typically, these scanners have a resolution of 2,000 dpi or better, and a D-Max of 3.6 or above, and are in the $2K-plus range, price-wise. (Remember, the printed page, even using the best of coated stock, can reproduce only about 4 stops of luminence range.)

The latest generation of digital printers, such as those made by Frontier, are capable of producing color prints from well-scanned slides that match or exceed the quality of CibaChrome prints, and at reasonable prices.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), November 28, 2001.

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The latest generation of digital printers, such as those made by Frontier, are capable of producing color prints from well-scanned slides that match or exceed the quality of CibaChrome prints, and at reasonable prices.
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I agree. Also, drum scans don't have to cost $50 each. Watch West Coast Imaging's website (www.westcoastimaging.com). They have monthly speical sales, occasionally including $29 drum scans. My experience with WCi has been quite good.

I haven't made any darkroom prints since I started using the digital process, and I doubt I ever will again.

Comparing my first crude attempts at digital printing with prints made by custom labs and in my own darkroom after 10 years' experience making Cibachromes, I want to throw all the darkroom prints away. Before the digital process, my prints resembled my slides. Now my prints look exactly like my slides.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), November 28, 2001.

Although I haven't used it very much (I don't even have a print portfolio!) Frontier seems to give extraordinary results. As to the drum scans @ $50! Maybe your processor has an economic interest in this option...

About scans - an agency I've just started working with, whose clients are the major US magazines, require a 2400x1600 quality 7 jpg for their clients - that means a 350K to 900K file. I was amazed, but the results seem to be perfectly satisfactory for everyone. That may be on the small size, but I also wouldn't take the super ultra high quality too seriously, especially at $50 a shot.

Of course, wanting the very highest technical quality is perfectly congruent with Leica ownership, so go for it.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), November 28, 2001.

Bob

I think you have to remember that most pictures in books are actually pretty small, unless a large coffee table book. This is forgiving of sharpness and many quality issues. Also remember that the screens for the CMYK preparations are certainly visible if you look closely - when you make your own prints you might not find this acceptable.

I can make a very good print from a slide at a typical book size reproduction from my $400 Minolta DualScan II. For many typical books these days, prepress houses may well use a Nikon Coolscan or equivalent rather than a drum scanner, unless the quality has to be absolutely first quality or the original is not 35mm. This is quite sufficient for most images. The CMYK separations have to carefully checked and color proofs are produced by the printer and these are checked for likeness to the original. This is expensive and not so trivial. An art book will be usually be printed on the very best paper and so on and is probably drum scanned.

I think that it is true that a conventional high quality printing press can produce excellent results and this is a tribute to the printing inks and color presses used - to do this yourself at home is not really possible, so we have to go with inkjets which produce good color, but are not as color fast.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), November 28, 2001.

When slides/transparencies are scanned for mechanical print work, contrast is reduced or stays the same. When you get photographic prints from slides, there is no effective contrast control, therefore results are usually dissapointing. Professional labs can make contrast reducing lith-film masks, but this is very time consuming and thus expensive, and results are a bit more satisfying though not perfect.

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), November 29, 2001.

Further to my earlier posting, some of the best art books, advertising campaigns and editorial work is now shot on neg film and scanned either from hand made prints or directly from negs.

-- sait (akkirman@clear.net.nz), November 29, 2001.