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"S/c/n Copy" and "Smudge Tool" used to repair forehead scratch

Nikon Scanner screen "Edit and Scan!'

Original on Ektar 25. Computer Duplicate.

Photo composition using "Cut and Paste" tool.

PHOTO LAB MANAGEMENT

2K resolution: Image stretched with "Free Resize" tool.

Torn and faded family photo restored with "Cut" and "Contrast" tools.

Nikon LS-3510AF Film ScannerJack and Sue Drafahl

Oi"F ALL THE photo equipment wehave tested in past years, the NikonLS-3510AF Film Scanner has beenthe most difficult—to get our handson! The popularity of the NikonScanner put it in such demand thatgetting one for review took monthsof negotiations. We found it was wellworth the wait. After exhaustivetesting, we found this scanner to bean excellent addition to the elec-tronic photo lab. Let's look at justhow valuable this scanner can be inyour operation.

Installation

The scanner itself is about the sizeof a slide projector, and is connectedJULY • 1992

to either a MAC or IBM/PC computervia a special communication cable.If you use a MAC system, the scan-ner cable is linked to the computerthrough the SCSI port in the back ofthe computer. The IBM/PC systemrequires a communication boardcalled a GPIB board to link the scan-ner cable and PC system.

The scanner is controlled by photomanipulation software installed onthe computer. The LS-3510AF isbundled with the customer's choiceof either Adobe PhotoShop or Letra-set ColorStudio on the Macintosh,and PhotoStyler for Windows onthe PC.

In order for the scanner to be timeefficient in your lab, your computer

system will need to operate withspeed and have a large amount ofmemory available. We would recom-mend at least IBM 386 with a mini-mum of 8 MB of RAM and a 200-300MB hard drive.

Macintosh with Systems 7 usersneed 64 MB RAM and those withoutSystems 7 should have between 8and 32 MB of RAM. With either sys-tem, a 200-300 MB hard drive is rec-ommended.

For our testing we used an IBM386 PC with Aldus PhotoStyler soft-ware. We have 16 MB of RAM, a 220MB hard drive and an additional 44-125 MB of SyQuest removable harddisk storage.

(Continued on page 10)

Nikon LS-3510AF(Continued from page 9)

Scanner Controls

The Nikon Scanner is able to readpositive and negative color andblack and white film. It then con-verts this analog data to digital whilereading 256 gradations each of red,green and blue, reproducing 16.7million colors. All scanner control isdone with photo manipulation soft-ware that comes with the scanner.

To help you understand just howsimple this scanner is to use, join usas we walk through the scanningprocess.

First, load your slide or negativeinto the special carriers designed forthe Nikon Scanner. You should use anegative brush and /or compressedair to clean dust from the image be-fore placing it in the scanner. Don'tworry if you do miss a dust particle,as you can remove it later using thephoto manipulation software.

After inserting the negative or

Nikon LS-3510AF Film Scanner.

slide into the scanner, select the"scan" function and you will bepresented with the Nikon ScannerScreen and its scanner controls.From this screen select the filmtype to be scanned. If you are scan-ning a color slide, you would select

the default color setting and selectthe "pre-scan" function. If a colornegative is to be scanned, you canselect the Kelvin color temperaturesetting of the original negative. Pos-sible selections are daylight, flash-bulb, tungsten, north light, early

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sunset or any specific Kelvin setting.Once this is selected, you wouldselect the "pre-scan" function.

The scanner will then make anauto-exposure and auto-focus yourfilm. A small image representing thescanned image will be presented inthe corner of the scanner controlscreen. Coarse color adjustmentsand exposure can be made to thisimage and previewed before the fullscan is made. Remember that cor-rections to color slides are made bydecreasing the red, green or bluesetting to eliminate a specific colorshift, while with color negatives youadd your correction.

After you have made all color andexposure corrections you can, setthe image resolution, and crop theimage for the final scan. All thesesetup procedures take less than acouple of minutes to accomplish.

The final step is to initiate thescan itself. The scan time dependson your computer configuration, file

(Continued on page 12)JULY • 1992

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Nikon LS-3510AF(Continued from page 11)

size and resolution of the final im-age. Once the scan is complete, theimage is displayed on the screen inthe photo manipulation software.Images scanned at 1/4 resolution re-sult in 794 DPI files with 4 MB filesize. Half resolution files result in1588 DPI files at about 9 MB size.Maximum resolution is approximate-ly 3175 DPI with 34 MB file size. Wefound that for most photographicapplications, 1/2 resolution was ac-ceptable and the scan time wasapproximately two minutes.

Photo Lab Applications

The secret to the successful intro-duction of the Nikon Scanner inyour photo lab depends on how youincorporate it into services you canoffer your clients. The following isa list of some of the uses we found.

Internegative or Slide Duplica-tion Device—Film conversions areeasily accomplished with this scan-

ner and a high-resolution film re-corder. Since the LS-3510AF canscan any type of 35mm or superslidefilm, you can make any type of con-versions a client wishes.

Suppose a client brings in severalKodachrome slides, some Ektar neg-atives, and T-Max negatives andwants all the images on Ektachrome100. You would scan each image in-to your computer, save out each fileand re-output them to a film record-er that has Ektachrome loaded in itscamera. The loss of quality for thistype of electronic conversion isabout the same as making a slideduplicate from an original image.

This service is especially usefulfor those clients who bring in oldfaded originals. With traditional copyfilms, you can control exposure andcolor balance. With a scanned image,you can control color balance, expo-sure, gamma, and contrast, and youcan even repair stained sections ofthe image.

Universal Printer—Using the Ni-kon Scanner and an electronic colorprinter, you can offer a variety of

print services outside your normallab operation. Suppose your lab onlysupports C-print processing, but youoccasionally get requests for printsfrom black and white or color slides.These images can be scanned intoyour computer in either black andwhite or color and re-output to thecolor printer as color or black andwhite prints. The cost of this type ofprint is more than traditional ser-vices, but it allows you to keep allyour customer's work in-house.

Densitometer—One way to justifythe use of this scanner in your labis by using it as a high-quality den-sitometer. Scan in your master con-trol strip, and balance the red,green, and blue until they are thesame value. Turn off the auto-expo-sure function of the scanner, andmake a low-resolution scan of thenew control strip that needs testing.Once the image is scanned into thecomputer, you would touch eachsquare with the ' 'eyedropper'' toolin the software. Red, green, andblue values are immediately readonto the screen. The advantage of

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PHOTO LAB MANAGEMENT

this system is that one reading istaken for all steps on one negative,and the image can be saved to diskfor future reference.

Scratch Repairs—One of themost valuable uses of the NikonScanner is saving images that wouldotherwise be lost due to scratchesand other damage. After the imageis scanned into your computer sys-tem, magnify the section to be re-paired. Use the "Pastel' "Copy;' and"Smudge" tools to quickly cover ascratch. We found we could repairmajor scratches on a color negativein a matter of minutes. Once the re-pair is made, a new negative or slidecan be generated on the film re-corder, or a print made on the elec-tronic color printer.

Retouching Services—Using thephoto manipulation software, youcan scan in images and removestraggling hairs, add highlights, re-move red eye, change blinks, and fixany background problems. You caneven make composite images of dif-ferent members of a family whowere photographed at different

times on different negatives.A-V Services—If your client base

includes Audio-Visual producers, youcan offer a variety of special effectservices normally done on expensiveoptical stands. For example, if yourclient wants color text burned intoan original, you have two choices.With traditional optical stands, youwould make several negative andpositive pin-registered masks andthen re-expose each onto a newframe of film. This is a slow andcostly method. With this scanneryou merely scan in the original slideand type the desired color text ontothe image, save out the file and re-expose it on the new frame of film.This method is quicker, uses lessmaterials and can be repeated orchanged easily.

Long-Term Storage ofNikon Scanner Images

You may find that you will want tokeep your customers' files in storage,in case they require additional workwith those scanned images. Storage

of 8-34 MB images can use up diskstorage in a hurry, so you will needto use a special file compressiontechnique called JPEG. We used aJPEG compression software fromITR Corporation. This IBM-PC soft-ware will compress a file to about1/10 its size with little loss of infor-mation. We found we could store 1-2eight MB images on a 1.4 MB floppy.This compression technique is usefulfor sending images over the modem.

The Nikon Film Scanner is by farone of the biggest advances in thegrowing trend towards electronicdarkrooms. Its high quality, ease ofuse and versatility will expand yourlab's capabilities and pay for itselfin a matter of months.

We like it so much that whenNikon asks for its return, we willsimply reply, "What Scanner?"

/^Jack and Sue Drafahl own and operate a full-service commercial photo lab just outside Port-land, OR. Services include audio visual produc-tions, computer graphics and stock photography.The Drafahls are also contributing editors toPetersen's Photographic, and specialize in photolab procedures.

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JULY • 1992For Fast Response Circle 529 For Fast Response Circle 508

For Fast Response Circle 557