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The importance of using a Digital Scan-Back in the reproduction of art
Image scanning is the
single most important part of the art reproduction business. Our business
and equipment are designed to reproduce art at the highest quality available
today. We prefer artists to bring, or send, us their original art. Some
artists are reluctant to release their art to anyone... Even for a short
period of time, while the art is digitized into a computer file. In these
cases the artists bring, or send, us film transparencies.
The quality of some transparencies are less than perfect. This occurs
for many reasons. Sometimes the transparencies are scratched and dirty, or
the film was not processed properly, or the lighting and exposure was not
right and there’s a lot of specular highlights. The list of reasons why
film transparencies are not our first choice is endless.
By using our Digital Scan-Back we can scan the original art directly into
the computer through a 4x5 camera. This way, every shot is a perfect shot.
The combination of our Digital Scan-Back and lighting that gives us constant
indirect daylight lighting that floods the original art results in no
specular highlights or hot spots. The resolution of the scan is very high
and the color is very accurate.
This process also saves a significant amount of labor. Cleaning up film
transparencies can take hours. Final adjustments to an image acquired using
our Digital Scan-Back takes only a few minutes.
Digitizing art by any method other than using a Digital Scan-Back means that
the final digital image file stored on the computer is at least two
generations away from the original. When you take a picture, the image first
travels through the lens of the camera. Then the film is developed,
introducing variable from the accuracy of the chemicals. The developed
transparency now must be scanned using a Flatbed Scanner which introduces a
third set of variables... The glass on the scanner, and the optics in the
scanner. The final digitized image is now three plus generations from the
original art. It is very probable that some of the imperfections injected by
one or more of these generations will not be correctable by the computer.
Anytime light passes through glass, you lose something... focusing or from
natural impurities of the glass of the lens. There is no easy way of
determining if the transparency has significant flaws until you have gone
through the trouble of scanning it. Even using a light box and/or a
magnifying loupe cannot detect significant flaws in the transparency. Once
the computer has enlarged the image by several thousand percent all the
imperfections in the image become apparent. What looks fine to the naked eye
at normal size may be significantly flawed when enlarged. If you want the
absolutely best quality of reproduction use a Digital Scan-Back and correct
lighting in a professional studio.
Images digitized using a Digital Scan-Back and printed using a high
resolution
Wide-Format printing result in 'Museum Quality' prints. To
learn more about the importance of using a Digital Scan-Back to digitize
art, or any important document or original, download the 'Better Imaging'
newsletter below.
To view this document you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have
Acrobat Reader you can download it by clicking on the Adobe icon below.
 Better Imaging Newsletter
(Download of 1,060KB)
At Aesthetic
Images our professional photographer and artist work in harmony to scan your
original image
and "fine tune" the digitized image, as needed, to maximize the
quality of the archived image. All of the art presented in our
Art Gallery
has been produced using this "Superior Quality" process.
We believe that
if you are serious about achieving the highest image quality available today, you
should not compromise on the quality of the image scanning and printing
process. Aesthetic Images is
dedicated to providing you with the highest quality of image scanning
services, and
printing services available today.
Pricing for Image
Capture Services are as follows:
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