Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Actually when you get a PhotoCD done, they use a Kodak Professional PhotoCD Scanner, the equivalent of a drum scanner or maybe just a bit less, but extremely close. Why not just go out and buy your own Kodak Pro PhotoCD Scanner? Well, they are $75,000 machines.....you'd have to scan 75,000 slides to break even! The bottom line is, they use VERY high-end machines, and the differences I see between scans I do on my $1,800 Polaroid scanner and the stuff I get back from their $75,000 Kodak scanner are HUGE! There is SO MUCH more shadow and highlight detail in a PhotoCD, and I have not even had the pleasure of getting the PRO PhotoCDs done.......I assume the quality level there is even another notch superior. PRO PhotoCD is only worth the money if you use it for 2 1/4 or 4x5 (which is what it was designed for) or if you need HUGE files (48 MB). For me, the 28MB files from the regular PhotoCD are awesome enough, and for $.89 to $1.25 (if you get over 200 done at once) it cannot be beat. Francesco At 03:03 PM 12/30/98 , emu@aloha.com wrote: >OK. From what I have learned here, I probably should not buy a film scanner >for my Mac because I need a quality level (e.g., Nikon L2000) that I can't >afford. > >Paying somebody to put my stuff on PhotoCD sounds like the best alternative. > >Question: Do most processing companies that peddle PhotoCD scanning use >high-end scanners that can deal with extreme contrast ranges? Scanning >twice for high and low contrast sounds workable, but is that anything you >can expect from the people who turn your work into PhotoCDs? > >Or to put it another way: When I have a slide with extreme contrast ranges, >should I pay extra for some kind of "custom" scanning onto PhotoCD? Is such >a service routinely available? > >I'm a newbie here, just getting back into Leica use after a long break. >This list is a fantastic resource and I'm really happy to have access to >it. Thanks to all of y'all and happy new year. > >Ernest Murphy >