AIRGALT, 'US OF CHINA', Drum scan and postproduction by CastorScan. Kodak Ektar 100, 4x5". --------- CastorScan's philosophy is completely oriented to provide the highest scan and postproduction quality on the globe. We work with artists, photographers, agencies, laboratories etc. who demand a state-of-the-art quality at reasonable prices. Our workflow is fully manual and extremely meticulous in any stage. We developed exclusive workflows and profilation systems to obtain unparallel results from our scanners not achievable through semi-automatic and usual workflows. ----- CastorScan uses the best scanners in circulation, Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II, the best and most advanced scanner ever made, Kodak-Creo IQSmart 3, a high-end flatbed scanner, and Imacon 848. The image quality offered by our Dainippon Screen 8060 scanner is much higher than that achievable with the best flatbed scanners or filmscanners dedicated and superior to that of scanners so-called "virtual drum" (Imacon â Hasselblad,) and, of course, vastly superior to that amateur or prosumer obtained with scanners such as Epson V750 etc . Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II exceeds in quality any other scanner, including Aztek Premier and ICG 380 (in the results, not just in the technical specifications). 8060's main features: 12000 dpi, Hi-Q Xenon lamp, 25 apertures, 2 micron Aztek Premier's main features: 8000 dpi, halogen lamp, 18 apertures, 3 micron ICG 380's main features: 12000 dpi, halogen lamp, 9 apertures, 4 micron Some of the features that make the quality of our drum scanners better than any other existing scan system include: The scans performed on a drum scanner are famous for their detail, depth and realism. Scans are much cleaner and show fewer imperfections than scans obtained from CCD scanners, and thus save many hours of cleaning and spotting in postproduction. Image acquisition by the drum scanner is optically similar to using a microscopic lens that scans the image point by point with extreme precision and without deformation or distortion of any kind, while other scanners use enlarger lenses (such as the Rodenstock-Linos Magnagon 75mm f8 used in the Hasselblad-Imacon scanners) and have transmission systems with rubber bands: this involves mild but effective micro-strain and micro-geometric image distortions and quality is not uniform between the center and edges. Drum scanners are exempt from problems of flatness of the originals, since the same are mounted on a perfectly balanced transparent acrylic drum; on the contrary, the dedicated film scanners that scan slides or negatives in their plastic frames are subject to quite significant inaccuracies, as well as the Imacon-Hasselblad scanners, which have their own rubber and plastic holders: they do not guarantee the perfect flatness of the original and therefore a uniform definition between center and edge, especially with medium and large size originals, which instead are guaranteed by drum scanners. Again, drum scanners allow scanning at high resolution over the entire surface of the cylinder, while for example the Hasselblad Imacon scans are limited to 3200 dpi in 120 format and 2000 dpi in 4x5" format (the resolution of nearly every CCD scanner in the market drops as the size of the original scanned is increased). Drum scanners allow complete scanning of the whole negative, including the black-orange mask, perforations etc, while using many other scanners a certain percentage of the image is lost because it is covered by frames or holders. Drum scanners use photomultiplier tubes to record the light signal, which are much more sensitive than CCDs and can record many more nuances and variations in contrast with a lower digital noise. If you look at a monitor at 100% the detail in shadows and darker areas of a scan made with a CCD scanner, you will notice that the details are not recorded in a clear and clean way, and the colors are more opaque and less differentiated. Additionally the overall tones are much less rich and differentiated. We would like to say a few words about an unscrupulous and deceitful use of technical specifications reported by many manufacturers of consumer and prosumer scanners; very often we read of scanners that promise cheap or relatively cheap âdrum scannerâ resolutions, 16 bits of color depth, extremely high DMAX: we would like to say that these ânominalâ resolutions do not correspond to an actual optical resolution, so that even in low-resolution scanning you can see an enormous gap between drum scanners and these scanners in terms of detail, as well as in terms of DMAX, color range, realism, âqualityâ of grain. So very often when using these consumer-prosumer scanners at high resolutions, it is normal to get a disproportionate increase of file size in MB but not an increase of detail and quality. To give a concrete example: a drum scan of a 24x36mm color negative film at 3500 dpi is much more defined than a scan made with mostly CCD scanner at 8000 dpi and a drum scan at 2500 dpi is dramatically clearer than a scan at 2500 dpi provided by a CCD scanner. So be aware and careful with incorrect advertisement. Scans can be performed either dry or liquid-mounted. The wet mounting further improves cleanliness (helps to hide dirt, scratches and blemishes) and plasticity of the image without compromising the original, and in addition by mounting with liquid the film grain is greatly reduced and it looks much softer and more pleasant than the usual "harsh" grain resulting from dry scans. We use Kami SMF 2001 liquid to mount the transparencies and Kami RC 2001 for cleaning the same. Kami SMF 2001 evaporates without leaving traces, unlike the traditional oil scans, ensuring maximum protection for your film. Out of ignorance some people prefer to avoid liquid scanning because they fear that their films will be dirty or damaged: this argument may be plausible only in reference to scans made using mineral oils, which have nothing to do with the specific professional products we use. We strongly reiterate that your original is in no way compromised by our scanning liquid and will return as you have shipped it, if not cleaner. With respect to scanning from slides: Our scanners are carefully calibrated with the finest IT8 calibration targets in circulation and with special customized targets in order to ensure that each scan faithfully reproduces the original color richness even in the most subtle nuances, opening and maintaining detail in shadows and highlights. These color profiles allow our scanners to realize their full potential, so we guarantee our customers that even from a chromatic point of view our scans are noticeably better than similar scans made by mostly other scan services in the market. In addition, we remind you that our 8060 drum scanner is able to read the deepest shadows of slides without digital noise and with much more detail than CCD scanners; also, the color range and color realism are far better. With respect to scanning from color and bw negatives: we want to emphasize the superiority of our drum scans not only in scanning slides, but also in color and bw negative scanning (because of the orange mask and of very low contrast is extremely difficult for any ccd scanner to read the very slight tonal and contrast nuances in the color negative, while a perfectly profiled 8060 drum scanner â also through the analog gain/white calibration - can give back much more realistic images and true colors, sharper and more three-dimensional). In spite of what many claim, a meticulous color profiling is essential not only for scanning slides, but also, and even more, for color negatives. Without it the scan of a color negative will produce chromatic errors rather significant, thus affecting the tonal balance and then the naturalness-pleasantness of the images. More unique than rare, we do not use standardized profiles provided by the software to invert each specific negative film, because they do not take into account parameters and variables such as the type of development, the level of exposure, the type of light etc.,; at the same time we also avoid systems of "artificial intelligence" or other functions provided by semi-automatic scanning softwares, but instead we carry out the inversion in a full manual workflow for each individual picture. In addition, scanning with Imacon-Hasselblad scanners we do not use their proprietary software - Flexcolor â to make color management and color inversion because we strongly believe that our alternative workflow provides much better results, and we are able to prove it with absolute clarity. At each stage of the process we take care of meticulously adjusting the scanning parameters to the characteristics of the originals, to extrapolate the whole range of information possible from any image without "burning" or reductions in the tonal range, and strictly according to our customer's need and taste. By default, we do not apply unsharp mask (USM) in our scans, except on request. To scan reflective originals we follow the same guidelines and guarantee the same quality standard. We guarantee the utmost thoroughness and expertise in the work of scanning and handling of the originals and we provide scans up to 12,000 dpi of resolution, at 16-bit, in RGB, GRAYSCALE, LAB or CMYK color mode; unless otherwise indicated, files are saved with Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB color profile. WWW.CASTORSCAN.COM
