Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Choosing a Computer System for Digital Imaging
built-in CMYK separation) that makes drum scanners better for large print shops.
Printing Choices.
Consider sending scanned, preprocessed files to a digital lab. They will "print" your
work on a real photographic paper. Of course, based on your targeted audience
(friends/family vs fine art) you may want to select different labs that give you
different processes, results, source scans requirements and, finally, prices.
-- Pawel Loj, January 20, 2002
I'll confine my comments to the PC world since I'm not very familiar with Macs.
SCSI: What makes great is not so much ultimate speed and throughput but that it
offloads the I/O processing from your CPU. This means that you system will
continue to be responsive when moving a lot of data. ATA100 (and now ATA133)
disks will move a lot of data quickly but they will bog down the main CPU making
the machine unresponsive. Som IDE RAID controllers will also offload the
processing similar to a SCSI controller. I have used and own both SCSI and IDE
based systems and the SCSI systems are more responsive.
Processor: Seriously consider going to a dual processor system. Once again, this is
about not having the system bog down. Dual processors will make multi-tasking
much easier.
If my budget were limited, I'd probably pick dual processors over SCSI.
-- Paul Wilson, January 21, 2002
I felt like this article just lacked the "meat" that I was hoping it would have.
Leaving out the mid-range options seems like a mistake to me. I'm using the Canon
FS4000US scanner and Epson 1280 Photo printer, and am having a great time with
the digital darkroom. I'm blown away by the quality that I'm getting right off the
bat; I'm sure I'll improve as I learn new techniques. This article came across to me
as relatively discouraging -- the exact opposite of the experience I'm having right
now.
-- Scott Hill, January 21, 2002
Vincent J M:
You post: "look at the Wilhelm research fiasco". I have used the Wilhelm pages for
deciding on printer and paper. Has something happened (fiasco) that I have not
seen?
http://www.photo.net/photo/computers (15 of 33)7/3/2005 2:19:07 AM