NIKON LS3510-AFFILM SCANNER

BY JACK AND SUE DRAFAHL

WHEN PERSONAL COMPUTERS WERE INTRODUCED JUST A SHORT TIME AGO,FEW PEOPLE REALIZED THEY WOULD HAVE SUCH AN INFLUENCE ONPHOTOGRAPHY TODAY. COMPUTERS ARE USED FOR ACCOUNTING, SLIDELABELLING, ORDER TRACKING AND NUMEROUS OTHER TASKS. NOW, THECOMPUTERS HAVE TAKEN US ONE STEP FURTHER INTO THE ELECTRONICDARKROOM. THIS NEW ELECTRONIC DARKROOM ALLOWS PHOTOGRAPHERS TOBE EVEN MORE CREATIVE THAN THEY EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE. NOW THEY CANFIX DAMAGED PHOTOS, DO ELECTRONIC AIRBRUSHING AND EVEN CREATE NEWAND EXCITING IMAGES WITH THE HELP OF THE COMPUTER.SEVERAL PHOTO ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING INTHESE NEW ADVANCEMENTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY: THE SCANNER, FILMRECORDER, AND THE DRY THERMAL COLOUR PRINTER. THE SCANNER IMPORTSTHE PICTURE INTO YOUR COMPUTER SO EITHER THE FILM RECORDER CAN OUTPUTTHE IMAGE ON FILM, OR THE THERMAL PRINTER CAN OUTPUT THE IMAGE ONPAPER. IN THIS REPORT WE WILL REVIEW THE NIKON LS3510-AF FILM SCANNER.

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BASIC CONSTRUCTION OF THENIKON LS3510-AF SCANNERThe Nikon scanner itself is aboutthe size of a slide projector andis connected to either a MACor an IBM/PC computer via aspecial communication cable.If you are using a MAC system,the cable will attach to yourSCSI port on the back of thecomputer. The IBM/PC systemrequires a specialcommunication board in yourcomputer called a GPIB boardto link the scanner and the PCsystem.The scanner is controlled byphoto manipulation softwareinstalled on the computer. Thisspecial software is bundledwith the LS3510-AF scanner andis determined by thecustomer's choice of eitherAdobe PhotoShop or LetrasetColorStudio for the MACsystem, or IBM users will receiveAldus PhotoStyler for Windows.COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS FORTHE NIKON SCANNERIn order for your scanner systemto be practical, werecommend the use of a veryfast computer, large memorycapacity, and a lot of filestorage space. If you use anIBM type system, you will needat least a 386 with a minimumof 8 Megabyte of Ram and a200 to 300 Megabyte hard disk.Macintosh users with system 7installed need 64 Megabytes ofRam, while those withoutsystem 7 will need 8-32Megabytes of Ram. Either MACsystem will need 200-300Megabytes of hard disk space.NIKON SCANNER CONTROLSThe Nikon scanner can read avariety of film types includingcolour slides, colour negatives,black and white negatives andblack and white positives. Thescanner converts the analoguedata to digital using 256 tonalgradations for each colour orgray scale and reproducesthem into 16.7 million colours.All control of the image is donewith the photo manipulationsoftware that comes with thescanner. To help you betterunderstand the operation ofthe scanner, we will walk youthrough a couple of scanneroperations.Insert a colour slide into thespecial 35mm slide carrier

Nikon Scanner Control

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Nikon Scanner screen Edit and Scan.

Combined photos with "Select" "Paste" and "Smudge" tolls.

Stock shot of Blue Angels Jet.

designed for the Nikonscanner. Select the "Scan"function from the photomanipulation software and ascreen will appear that willallow you to select film types,

Stock shot of clouds.

colour balance, exposure, andfocus. Select "Colour Positive"as the film selection and pressthe preview button on thescanner menu. The scanner willthen make a quick, low

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•Image stretched with "Select" and "Free Re-size" Comm.

Stock photo of Bi-plane.resolution pass of the slide andpresent a small full version ofthe scan in the lower rightportion of the screen. Thescanner will do an auto-exposure of the image, andfocus the slide as it is scannedinto the computer.You can adjust the colourbalance and exposure withthe "Colour" and "Exposure"controls of the scanner menu.Each time an adjustment ismade the new version isdisplayed in the preview boxon the screen. When you arehappy with the preview image,press the "Scan" function andthe scanner will make a highresoloution scan of the red,

green, and blue componentsof the slide and blend themtogether on the screen. Assoon as the full image isscanned into the computer,further enhancement to theimage can be made and thenit is sent to a file, film recorder,or thermal colour printer.If you had a colour negative toscan, a special negativecarrier would hold thenegative in place and youwould select "Colour Negative"in the film type menu. Whenyou press this function, asecond Kelvin temperaturemenu will appear. Select thetype of lighting used for thatspecific image. For example,you could select daylight,tungsten, early sunset, northlight, or a specific numericalKelvin temperature. The imageis then preview-scanned,adjusted, and full-scanned intoyour computer system.Once the image is in yourcomputer, you can save it tofile, send it to the film recorder,or print it on a thermal printer.If you save the image to file

you will need a considerableamount of disk space forstorage of the image. Forexample a 1 /4 resolutionimage (794 DPI) will take up 4megabytes, a 1/2 resolution file(1588 DPI) will beapproximately 9 megabytes insize, and a full resolution imagewill occupy at least 34megabytes of space. Thereare three basic solutions to thestorage of these largephotographic files - cartridgehard drives like the SyQuest 44-125 megabyte cartridges, atape backup system thathandles up to 2 Gigabyte ofinformation, or a special filecompression technique calledJPEG. The file compressiontechnique is available for bothMAC and IBM and can reducean 8 megabyte file down to800k bytes with very little loss ofinformation.PHOTOGRAPHIC APPLICATIONSOF THE NIKON LS3510-AFSCANNEROnce you have learned thebasic operation of the scanner,the fun begins. We quickly

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Studio shot of model withscratch in forehead.

found dozens of photographicapplications for this handy tool.Many replaced tedious andexpensive traditional processesin the photo lab and someapplications were not evenpossible before the scannercame into existence. Here arejust a few of the applicationsthat illustrate the potential ofthis scanner.SCRATCH REPAIR - How manyimages have you trashedbecause of large scratchesthat made the imageunusable? We' re talking aboutdeep emulsion scratches thatcut through all the color layersof the film and actually flakeoff into your hand. To repair thisimage, you would first scan itinto the computer, and thenmagnify the damaged sectionwith the "Magnify" tool. Usingthe "Select" and "Paste" tools,you can select similar areasnext to the scratch and placeit over the scratch. You canthen use a "Smudge" tool tocover up any unevennessbetween the new paste andthe background. Thistechnique works extremely wellwith large sky areas that havescratches, imbedded dust, orfungus growth. Once theimage is repaired, you wouldsend it out to the film recorderso it can be imaged on a newframe of film. The resulting

Scratch removed with "Select" "Copy" and "Smudge" tools.image quality would be aboutthe same as a very high qualityduplicate slide. Agreed, theimage is not as sharp as theoriginal, but at least it's not inthe trash!FILM CONVERSIONS - With theNikon LS3510-AF scanner and ahigh resolution film recorder,you can take any film typeand convert it to any other filmtype. For example, you canscan in a Kodachrome 25 slide,an Ektachrome 100 colourslide, and a Fujicolor negativeand send them all to T-Maxblack and white film for

making black and white printsin the lab. You could alsoconvert all these images toblack and white in thesoftware and then send themout to Ektachrome 100 as ablack and white slide image.For those photographershaving trouble converting theirblack and white negatives topositives, without goingthrough a print first, thescanner is the solution. Merelyscan in the negative and sendit back out to a high resolutioncolour film on your filmrecorder. For example, T-Max

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Reflections removed with "Select" "Copy" and "Smudge" tolls.

Studio shot of underwatervideo reflections on domes.

negatives can be convertedto black and white on Velvia orKodachrome. The possiblecombinations of tilmconversion are endless.PORTRAIT RETOUCHING - Nowyou can retouch 35mmportraits just like photographerswho shoot on the larger formatsystems. You can removestrangling hairs, fix red eyes,change blinks, and repairbackgrounds. Most of theseproblems can be repaired withthe "Copy", "Paste" and"Smudge" tools found in thephoto manipulation software.Composite portraits of severalpeople from different negative

and slide sources can becombined by scanning ineach image and thenblending them together withthe "Copy" and "Paste" tools.CREATION OF NEW IMAGES - Asomewhat controversial use ofthe scanner is for the creationof new images. These imagesare created from originalimages scanned into yoursystem which are thenmodified to generate a newimage. This process isespecially useful for imageswith problem backgrounds,such as a telephone poleobstructing the background.Using the "Copy" and "Paste"commands you can copy thesurrounding area and place itover the telephone pole. The"Smudge" tool allows you tosmooth out any unevenness inyour "new" original photo.The controversy arises from thefact that the photo has beenaltered beyond the means ofstandard darkroommanipulation. Because of thenever ending technologicaladvances, electronic image

manipulation is now a reality.The problem rests with the factthat we have to figure out away for photographersworldwide to live with thisreality. We feel that one wayaround this controversy is togenerate a new symbol to beused in conjunction with thestandard copyright symbol. Itwould be a circle with a "M"inside to indicate that thephoto was "Manipulated".Articles by other writers havesuggested this usage and westrongly support this solutionand hope that it will eventuallybecome another internationalstandard in photography.COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY -If you use a 35mm camera forcommercial photoassignments, you will love whatthe Nikon scanner can do foryou. You can scan in photos ofproducts taken on a whitebackground and place themon a gradated colourbackground, computergenerated backgrounds, orscenic photo backgrounds. Avariety of special effects are

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Combined photos with "Select" "Paste" and "Smudge" tools.

Stock shot.

Stock shot of a NikonCamera.

also available to enhance yourphotos. For example, you maywant to streak part of theimage and keep theremainder of the image sharp.

This is accomplished with the"Free Re-size" command.Simply, take your normalpicture and select portionsand re-size (stretch) it until it isoff- edge of the image.THE ENVIRONMENTThere are a number of old timephotographers who considerthe Nikon LS3510-AF scanner athreat to photographybecause there is virtually nolimit to what you can do with it.As photographers for the last30 years, we don't consider thescanner a threat, but rather avaluable tool. When you usethe scanner to replace manyof the tedious darkroomprocesses, three thingshappen. Firstly, you will be ableto create images you onlyvisualized when you had youreyes closed. Secondly, whenyou reduce the time andmoney required to accomplishthese tasks, it allows you thefreedom to produce morepure photography. Last, butmost importantly, by going toelectronic manipulation andreducing the amount of wet

photo process, you are helpingto reduce pollution of theplanet. If you have any doubtsabout this, just remember howmuch film, developer, fixer, andtime were required to make asingle posterization. You cannow accomplish the sameexact effect with a singlekeystroke.CONCLUSIONSWhile attending the last PhotoMarketing Associationconvention, we took a longhard look at wherephotography was heading.Most convention vendorsagreed that film was definitelyhere to stay as the main sourceof image capture. It seemsthat as soon as still videoimproves, films improvetwofold. So, in order to takeadvantage of this electronicdarkroom revolution, you needa high quality method fortransferring your 35mm film intoyour computer. The NikonLS3510-AF film scanner openedthe door to the electronicdarkroom and let all the darkleak out.

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