Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] PhotoCD scan quality
From: Francesco <fls@san.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 16:59:07 -0800

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
>