transparenciesscalpel

Scanning services

We handle a wide range of materials for digitisation including b&w and colour negatives, slide film, glass plates, lantern slides, prints, paintings, drawings, manuscripts and 3-d objects, both onsite, in your facility, or at our office.

Transparency and negative film scanning

Using our Kodak HR Universal and Scitex Eversmart scanners we can digitise negative and positive film to an extremely high standard, with file sizes of upto 60mb for a 35mm original and in excess of 500mb for a 10 x 8 !

- Kodak HR Universal Film Scanner

"Exceptional scanning speed and superb image quality. With an extra measure of flexibility. The KODAK PROFESSIONAL HR Universal Film Scanner uses Digital ICE Technology to deliver digital image files of superb quality." http://www.kodak.com

Digital Ice Technology is incorporated in the Kodak HR Universal scanner. It automatically removes dust, scratches and blemishes from a scanned image significantly improving downstream workflow productivity both in terms of labour and time. Digital Ice does not soften, blur or in any way alter the detail or composition of the image. The technology works within the scanner, during the scanning process.

- Creo Scitex Eversmart

"The EverSmart Supreme delivers the ultra-high resolution, extended dynamic range and color depth that today's professionals require. With EverSmart scanners, unbeatable reliability, extreme sharpness and image detail go hand in hand with speed-you can quickly produce high volumes of scans to meet the tightest deadlines at the highest possible scanning performance." http://www.creo.com

The Scitex Eversmart flatbed scanner is unique in the fact that originals can be oil mounted, a technique that was untill recently only plausible on drum scanners. Oil mounting is common in the graphic arts and photographic industries. If scratched film is bathed in a layer of scanning oil or gel, the scratches in the film disappear when the image is scanned. This significantly reduces post-scan retouching, thereby saving time and operation costs. In addition, oil mounting enhances overall image quality by reducing image grain.

Non Contact Scanning

Antique bound books and ancient manuscripts do not greatly benefit from traditional scanning techniques! Image Network therefore use "non-contact" scanning methods to digitise such material using the Phase One Powerphase scanning back camera. Digitisation of such delicate and valuable material can be done either at our London studio or on the clients own premises.

The technology used by scanning back cameras is totally different from the single-shot digital capture cameras using area array sensors (CCD and CMOS). Scan backs gather the information for the image in one continuous scan as the light is collected by three, individually filtered rows of pixels, this is called a tri-linear CCD. Since it moves across the film plane capturing light one row of pixels at a time, it will take several minutes to complete a large file. On the other hand, no other camera is gathering such a huge population of pixels (upto 500mb) over such a large format area of nearly 3x4 inches, 5X the physical area of most array sensors. All of the pixels are PURE, true RGB color, not interpolated color by the camera software.