P H O T O G R A P H I Y E R ' S G U I D E

DIGITALIMAGING

Is it for you?by Jack and Sue Drafahl

Today's technology is changing at such afast pace it is hard to keep up. Thanks toimprovements in computer chip designphotography has made the transitionalstep to digital. It's not a passing fad, it's

here to stay. As we approach the century mark, dig-ital is becoming the new photography.

So, why would you want to become part of thisnew extension of photography? You can put to-gether composite images, add text, make t-shirts,create fancy postcards, repair old or new photos,and even put together your own newsletters withcaptioned photos. Your images can be sent to otherfamily members via e-mail and they will see themin minutes, not days. You can produce a tremen-dous array of special effects, and you can use yourcomputer as a digital darkroom, doing such thingsas changing contrast, making an image lighter ordarker, dodging and burning, adjusting color bal-ance, etc. The list of reasons goes on and on. Themore you get into digital, the more you'll wonderhow you ever got along without it.

Before we look at the different products and fea-tures of the digital world, we need to take a stepback and look at the basics of the digital process.Once you see how each step works, the necessaryhardware and software will make a lot more sense.

THE DIGITAL PROCESS

Input—edit—output. That's all it boils down to.Everything in digital fits into one of these three ar-eas. Digital input is the conversion of a photographor real scene to electronic bytes of data. This can beaccomplished using a digital camera, still video, orfilm or print scanner.

The editing part of digital photography is the funpart. This is where you sit in front of your comput-er and crop, color-correct, change, or do just aboutany thing you want to the image.

The output of the image is very much like theprinting process, except there is no darkroom. In-stead of an enlarger, you will be using a variety ofprinters, or you may generate a new negative orslide via a film recorder.

If you already have a computer, you can get intodigital imaging for a few hundred dollars. Then, ifyou like it, you can expand, add more hardware,software, and become a full digital photographer.

INPUT: PHOTO CD

The easiest way to get started in digital photog-raphy is with a Kodak Photo CD. You pick out thephotos you want to edit—either negatives or slides.A Photo CD workstation operator scans your im-ages into a computer and then writes them to a gold

Photo CD. Once this isdone, you can put yourimages away and work di-rectly from the images onthe Photo CD. Just pop thePhoto CD into your com-puter 's CD tray, andyou're on your way. Mostphoto-editing programshave the means to utilizePhoto CD images.

Digital imaging allowsyou to produce a widevariety of special effectsfrom your photos, in anenvironmentally friendlyway—no darkroom, nochemicals. But specialeffects are only part ofwhat digital can do foryou. See text for details.

1997 Pnoiographic Buyer's Guide 141

ADOBE

OzO

ho0

• Adobe offers Photoshop, the in-dustry standard photo-editing pro-

gram, and PhotoDeluxe, a low-priced version for home users.

AGFA

• Agfa markets the pro-level Ac-tionCam and StudioCam digitalcameras ($10,000) and several print

APPLE

• Besides a full line of Macintoshcomputers ideal for digital imaging,Apple offers the QuickTake 150digital snapshot camera (under $700

CANON

Vr

• Canon makes pro-level digitalcameras, and has just introduced sev-eral low-cost digital-imaging prod-ucts: the PowerShot 600 (the high-est-resolution digital camera under$1000), the CanoScan 300 and 600

CASIO

• Casio offers three under-$1000digital cameras: the QV-10, QV-30and new QV-100. The QV-30 offers

CHINON

• Chinon's ES-1000 and ES-3000digital cameras both sell for under$1000. The ES-3000 has a 3X zoomlens, the under-$500 ES-1000 a

EPSON

• Epson makes ink-jet printers,scanners and the under-$500 Pho-toPC digital camera aimed at busi-ness and home-computer users. Withthe look and feel of a standard 35mm

FARGO

• Fargo makes pro-level dye-subli-mation printers, but also offers the

• Fuji's digital products includeconsumer and pro-level cameras, theFujix FV-7 Photo-Video Imager, the

Fujifilm Print-It Personal Photo-graphic Print Maker and higher-levelprinters.

• KOdak digital products includethe Photo CD, three low-coast digitalcameras (the $300 DC20, the DC40and the DC50), high-end pro cam-eras based on Nikon N90 and Canon

EOS-IN pro AF SLRs, the new $199Digital Science Snapshot PhotoScanner 1, and the Kodak PictureDisk, which stores low-resolutionimages on a floppy disk.

scanners (with optional transparen-cy adapters) ranging in price from$750 to more than $2000.

street price), the Color OneScanner(street price under $900), a qualityprint scanner for home use; and sev-eral good printers.

color flatbed print scanners (both un-der $900), two MultiPASS fax ma-chine-bubble-jet printers (the 800and color C2500) and the NoteJetll-Icx, a notebook computer with built-in color printing and mono scanning.

telephoto and wide focal lengthsand a built-in 2.5-inch LCD panelfor on-the-spot viewing.

fixed focal length of 6.5mm. Bothutilize PC cards for expanded imagestorage, and both offer fully auto-matic operation.

film camera, the PhotoPC stores upto 16 screen-quality images, with op-tional PhotoSpan storage modulesincreasing this to up to 160 images.It accepts any 37mm video lens.

FotoFUN! thermal dye-sublimationprinter (under $400) for home use.

Photo CD files come in five resolu-tions that range from 192x128 to3072x2048 pixels. The first three low

Kodak Photo CD is a convenient way toget your photos into your computer, if ithas a CD-ROM drive. Many photofinish-es can scan your images onto a PhotoCD for a relatively low cost.

resolutions are for preview, newsletters,or any application that doesn't need tobe above computer-screen resolution of640x480 pixels. The two higher resolu-tions are for making color prints orslides on a digital output device. Youcan have 100 images put on the PhotoCD, all at once, or only a few at a time.

INPUT: PRINT/FILM SCANNERS

If you want to bring pictures directlyinto the computer yourself, you can useone of three types of photo scanners.Flatbed scanners look and work verymuch like a photocopy machine. Thephoto is laid face down on a piece ofglass and the cover is placed over the

Storm's EasyPhoto Reader is a low-costhome scanner that puts your prints (upto 5x7 inches, color or black-and-white)into yur computer.

top. A preview scan of the photo ismade and displayed on the computerscreen. Basic cropping, color correction,and exposure can be adjusted with thispre-scan. Once correctly adjusted, thescan is then saved to a computer file.

Another print scanner works like aFAX machine. You feed the photo intothe scanner and it pulls it through as itscans the image into your computer.

142 1997 PHorographic Buyer's Guide

Nikon's Scantouch 110 is a high-qualityhome print scanner that can produce a300 dpi 26MB color file in 23.6 seconds.

The Minolta QuickScan 35 is a quickand easy way to get images from yourslides or negatives into your computer

Negatives and slides are imported intothe computer system with a device calleda film scanner. The film is loaded into aslide or negative carrier, and the image isthen scanned into the computer system.Negative images are reversed on the pre-view screen, so you can see the final pos-itive image. Some film scanners evenhave a device that allows you to scanbulk groups of slides.

INPUT: STILL VIDEO

Still video images can either be takenwith a video camera you already have, ora specially designed video camera sys-tem. Either camera is linked to the com-puter with a special circuit board called avideo capture board. As the video imagesare projected on your computer screen,press a software control and you'll cap-ture a single frame as a picture file. The

The Tamron Digital Fotovix IIIS-D pro-vides an easy way to catalog your pho-tos in your computer, and also servesas a video screen viewer and more.

resolution of a video image is low andonly small prints can be output beforeyou start to see pixelation and loss ofqual i ty . The low-cost Snappy VideoSnapshot will capture video images forcomputer use. Tamron's Digital Fotovixis handy for creating digital databases ofyour photos.

INPUT: DIGITAL CAMERAS

The digital camera captures images di-rectly into the camera where it has a stor-age device. The images are then downloaded to the computer and the camera isready to go again. Yes, we now havefilmless cameras! Digital cameras arerated in three levels of image resolu-tion—low, medium, and high.

BG

Kodak and Canon combined to producethe EOS * DCS 5, a $12,000 pro digitalcamera based on the Canon EOS-IN proAF SLR body.

The medium resolution digital camerais still expensive, and is often used byprofessional photographers. These cam-eras are modified versions of 35mm SLRcameras already on the market and ac-cept the same lenses and accessories.

The Snappy Video Snapshot does whatits name suggests—captures still im-ages from video sources (TV, VCR,camcorder, etc.) so you can use them inyour computer.

Kodak's new DC20 is an under-$350digital camera that offers fully automat-ic operation and can store 8 or 16 24-bitcolor images (depending on resolution).

The low resolution digital cameralooks like a traditional compact 35mmcamera but captures images in pixel reso-lu t ion s imi lar to that of a computerscreen. You can print these images to3Mx5, but 5x7 images start to show pixe-lation. These images are great for screenviewing, proofing, sending over the e-mail, newsletters, t-shirts, or in an imagedatabase.

Ricoh's RDC-1 lets you record and playback still photos and motion scenes,with or without sound, then use them ina variety of ways.

The high-resolution digital camera issti l l rare, and very expensive (Someover $30,000). The quality of the im-ages shot on this camera is similar to agood 35mm color negative fi lm andmake excellent 8x10 enlargements.When technology allows manufacturersto make this camera at an affordableprice, then the digital camera will be adominate player in photography.

EDIT: HARDWARE

Most photographers today have acomputer that they use for games, wordprocessing, billing, e-mail, newsletters,or to create lecture slides. Generally thehome system lacks some necessary hard-ware and software to make it a good pho-to-editing computer. Here are some re-quirements for upgrading your system.

1997 PHorographic Buyer's Guide 143

O

H

zO

BG METATOOLS

OzO

h

oQ

• MetaTools offers a variety of im-age-edit ing tools. Kai 's PowerTools 3 extends the effects possiblewith Adobe Photoshop. Kai's Pow-

er GOO lets you distort images withease. MetaTools also offers CD-ROMs with photos you can use forpractice and projects.

MINOLTA

• Minolta 's QuickScan 35 scansslides and negatives into the com-puter. The Vectis VP-1 lets you im-port your Advanced Photo System

NIKON

• Nikon offers pro-level digitalcameras, excellent home- and pro-level print and slide scanners and thenew Camera-on-a-PC-Card and Mul-

OLYMPUS

Vr

Olympus produces two pro-leveldigital cameras, the Deltis VC-1000and Deltis VC-1100, as well as the

POLAROID

• Polaroid's digital products rangefrom the PDC-2000 digital camerato three SprintScan 35 slide/nega-

tive scanners. The $299 PhotoPadscans color or B&W photos up to4x6 inches.

RICOH

• Ricoh's unique RDC-1 digitalcamera lets you record and playback s t i l l photos and motionscenes, with or without sound, and

SONY

• Sony offers the DKC-ID1 under-$2000 digital camera, the DKC-5000 pro camera, the CSP-941 IS

recordable CD drive, the PC Camvideo camera and a variety of excclient computer monitors.

STORM

• Storm's EasyPhoto Reader andsoftware make it easy and fun toscan prints up to 5x7 inches into

your computer. Storm EasyPhotosoftware is also packaged with othermanufacturers' products.

TAMRON

• The Tamron Digital Fotovix IIIS-D looks much like a slide copier,and allows you to very quickly in-put your slides or negatives into thecomputer to produce a d igi ta l

database of your images. The veryhandy unit can also record videoframes and, via accessories, three-dimensional objects and microscopeimages.

YASHICA

• Yashica offers an inexpensivedigital camera, the DA-1. It stores

up to 50 images on an ultracompact,highly affordable 2-inch disk.

photos into the computer. Minoltaalso offers a pro-level digital cam-era, the RD-175, and distributesPlay's Snappy Video Snapsshot.

ti-Purpose AV Compact Camera,which are barely bigger than the PCcard used to store the images youmake with them.

SYS.230 Personal Storage System, agreat way to store transport your dig-ital images.

put them into your computer formanipulation, transmission on theInternet and output. Ricoh also of-fers a scanner.

The HP Pavilion Model 7130P PC comeswith a built-in HP PhotoDrive and StormEasyPhoto software—this computer hasa built-in print scanner.

The speed of your computer will de-termine how long you have to wait tosee the results of each edit. Most editingsystems will not work properly on acomputer slower than a 486-33 PC. Ifyou do have a slower system, your pa-tience will wear thin after only a coupleof edits. A minimum of 32 megabytes ofRAM (Random Access Memory) is usu-ally required to run the editing programand hold the picture in memory. Theprice of RAM dropped over 200% in1996 so larger blocks of RAM in yourcomputer are now affordable. We highlyrecommend 100 megabytes if you planto use Adobe Photoshop with full-reso-lution Photo CD images. You will alsoneed a 24-bit color display to edit yourimages in full color. This is standard onmost systems today, so you may alreadyhave this.

Olympus offers this under-$900 CDrecorder-player that supports Photo CDand Video CD formats. It's a handy wayto store your images.

With scanned images ranging from1-36 megabytes, you will find yourselfrunning out of image storage room veryquickly. One solution is the addition of asecond hard disk. The price of harddisks has also dropped, and a 1 gigabytedrive can now be picked up for less than$300. Unfortunately you will find thateven a second large hard disk is only atemporary fix. Fortunately there are sev-eral types of removable hard disks, flop-ticals, zip drives, tape drives, which canhold up to several gigabytes of imagestorage.

144 1997 PHorographic Buyer's Guide

The best and most reliable system isthe CD writer. Just a few years ago theseunits cost over $20,000, but in just ashort time they have dropped to below$1000. Up to 600 megabytes of informa-tion can be stored permanently on theseinexpensive disks. The data on theseCDs is supposed to last over 50 yearsand can be retrieved on any computerCD player.

If you are already on the Internet, youwill have a FAX-Modem card installedin your computer. If you do not, youshould seriously consider getting one.Once you are on the NET you can e-mailimages and messages, look at new digitalphoto products, and even get technicalsupport if you have problems. Wouldn'tit be nice to scan in a picture of a child ata birthday party and drop it into thegrandparent's e-mail so that they can seeit almost immediately?

EDIT: SOFTWARE

The main type of software you will beusing is a bitmap, or photo quality, edit-ing program. These programs look for alltypes of bitmap files such as Photo CD,Targa, Tiff, BMP, GIF, or JPEG andload it into your computer memory. Inthe software itself you'll find dozens of

Adobe PhotoDeluxe is a low-priced,easy-to-learn version of the most popu-lar pro image-editing software, AdobePhotoshop. It guides you through 25projects, and lets you do your ownthing, too.

editing tools to correct exposure, colorbalance, gamma, contrast, saturation,grain, sharpness (yes, you can increasesharpness), and cropping. The best partof these editing tools is that you can im-mediately see the correction. If you don'tlike your correction, you can press the"Undo" key and it backs up one step.

Additional editing tools called Plug-ins are available from other softwaremanufactures. These added features giveyou unlimited versatility when editing animage. You can now mix photos togeth-

er, repair damaged photographs, add text,create t-shirt designs and make businesscards or advertising literature for yourbusiness.

If you plan on scanning and editinglots of images, you may want to consideran image database program. These pro-grams read each scanned picture intomemory, create a thumbnail image, andthen create a picture database. If youwant to edit a picture, just go to thedatabase, double click on it, and it opensinto your editing program.

One important feature that should bein your software program is a JPEG filecompression routine. This file format isdesigned for photography and can com-press files from 32 megabytes down toless than 5 megabytes. You may hearthat this option loses data, but after ex-tensive testing, we have found no differ-ence between the compressed and un-compressed files. The obvious advantageis that you can store many more com-pressed images than uncompressed.

OUTPUT: LASER PRINTERS

One of the first photo quality outputdevices on the market was the laser print-er. At first the images were only blackand white, but more recently the resolu-tion has increased and there is now coloroutput. The drawback to color laserprinters is that a dot pattern is formed inthe process and uneven printing occurswhen an image has a lot of dark area.

OUTPUT: INKJET PRINTERS

The inkjet printer is very much like aprinting press in that it adds different lay-ers of ink to the paper as it passesthrough the machine. Smaller machinesusually make one pass for each color,while the larger machines will coat thepaper in one pass. Special inkjet papersare available and usually run around $1for each 8.5x11 sheet. InkJet printerscome in many sizes from mini print tolarge digital mural prints.

OUTPUT: DYE-SUBLIMATIONPRINTERS

One of the highest quality digitalprinting devices on the market is the dyesublimation printer. Its complex internaloperation uses cyan, magenta, yellowand black dyes located on a roll in theprinter. As special paper passes under theprint head, the dyes are forced into thepaper. The paper makes a pass for eachcolor dye on the roll. These printers arerestricted in size because of the rolls ofdyes and the special paper can be quiteexpensive. The advantage is that you canprint a high quality images in your homewithout a darkroom or enlarger.

Fuji's new Fujifilm Print-It PersonalPhotographic Print Makerprints high-quality 24-bit color images from digital

BG

Fuji's environmentally friendly NC-2Print It Personal Photographic PrintMaker produces high-quality color im-ages from digital files or video in lessthan two minutes via a unique process,and costs less than $700.

Fargo's FotoFUN! thermal dye-subprinter lets you output your digital files(that is, your computer photos) in high-quality color very easily.

or video in less than two minutes, via Fu-ji's unique Thermo-Autochrome process,which creates a color image in responseto heat—there are no ink cartridges orother disposable supplies.

OUTPUT: FILM RECORDER

A film recorder works very much likea printer, except that the image prints on-to film not paper. A 35mm, 70mm, 4x5,or 8x10 film back attaches to the unit andthe image is projected on a special black& white CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) in theunit. As the different colors are sent tothe device, a color filter wheel revolvesand projects the red, green and blue partsof the image onto film. Most photogra-phers will not have direct access to oneof these devices as the good ones arevery expensive.

OUTPUT: SERVICE BUREAU

When you first start into digital imag-ing, you will probably not have all theequipment necessary and should dependon your local digital lab or service bu-reau. Think of a service bureau as thedigital photo lab that has all the toys youwould like to have! They usually have avariety of scanners, editing computers,laser printers, big inkjet printers, dye-sublimation printers, and high qualityfilm recorders. Service bureaus allowyou to enter the digital world without thepocketbook crunch of investment. Tofind a service bureau, look in the Yellow

1997 PHorographic Buyer's Guide 145

0

O

H>r

i>ozo

BGo

O

O

Pages under Computer Graphics, Slides,Photography Labs and Service Bureaus.Make sure you ask about price, file typesthey require, hidden costs, file transportdevices, and if they have samples to re-view. Once you see their results, you canthen decide how much you want to doyourself and how much to send to theservice bureau.

TAKING THE DIGITAL PLUNGE

You will find mixed feelings amongphotographers regarding digital photog-raphy. Those who do get into digital,view it as an extension of the photo-graphic process. Those against digitalconsider it a threat to the creative pro-cess. Photography has had controversythroughout history, but each time newtechnology has won out. The wet plategave way to flexible film, viewfinders toSLR, black-and-white to color, and nowsilver to digital. We think you're goingto love it! Q

Here's a sampling ofthings you can do with im-age-editing software onceyour images are in thecomputer. You can placea jet plane against a more-interesting sky, repairscratched images, replacea busy background with acomplementary one, addtext and add special ef-fects—and a lot more. Allphotos by Jack and SueDrafahl.

146 1997 PHorographic Buyer's Guide