Digital Prints

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Mastering Digital Printing
The other Rolls Royce of scanners is the Cruse Synchron. Invented by Hermann Cruse and
manufactured in Germany, this behemoth comes in a couple of styles and several models (see
Figure 3.11), and it is a sight to see. Weighing in at 1,940 lbs. and priced around $110K, the
Synchron CS 285 ST-FA has a maximum resolution of 14000 × 26000 dpi, generates 1.1
GB files, and it can accept originals up to 59 × 88 inches (that’s more than seven feet across!).
This model scanner has a fixed light source and scan head with the artwork on a vacuum table
moving underneath. Many Cruse scanners also have a “variable texture” feature that allows
you to vary the lighting to emphasize the raised texture patterns on the original art.
Photography
Since photography in general and digital photography in particular are subjects that fill
many worthy books, we’ll only hit the highlights as they relate to digital printing.
Photographers have the most experience in this area since capturing images is already their
primary activity, either with analog or digital cameras. Traditional artists, on the other hand,
are mainly concerned about digitizing finished artwork, and they tend to rely on outside
professionals such as printmakers or photographers. And finally, many digital artists use cameras
(and scanners) for inputting image elements that are later manipulated on the computer.
There are two main ways to capture images with photography: with traditional film photography
and direct digital capture.
Film Photography
Many photographers still prefer to work with film and then scan it in the ways that we’ve
already covered. For traditional artists reproducing existing artwork with film, the art is
photographed with a camera that typically produces a medium- to large-format transparency
(color negatives are harder to deal with in scanning), which is then scanned on a
high-end scanner. The skill of the photographer in dealing with image squareness, lighting,
exposure time, focus, film choice, and more is paramount. Photographing art is an
art in itself, and it takes a lot of experience and training to do it right.
Although film is losing ground steadily in the face of the digital onslaught, many have not
abandoned it yet. “As I write this,” says John Castronovo, owner of Tech Photo & Imaging
in Fairfield, New Jersey, “the best film capture is still superior to digital. However, I’m
afraid that the knowledge of how to use film is dying as fast as the technology itself. There
are serious reasons why one might want to shoot and scan film, and in our lab, we find
that we still need to do both, depending on the requirements of the job.
“One of the nicest things about large format film is that it captures more data than we will
probably ever need in the reproduction process. An 8×10 transparency can yield well over
a gigabyte of usable data, and most importantly, all that information recorded in the transparency
is automatically there for the taking at any time in the future. Few people would
ever scan artwork at such resolutions expecting that someone might have a need for it sometime
down the road. Moreover, a transparency is its own proof. Unlike digital, it needs no
translation to manifest itself in our analog world.
“You have to admit that the quality of large format film plus a drum scan has never been
in question,” Castronovo continues. “However, digital is more convenient for most