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by ROSS TESTER Compared to just a few years ago, computers have made life almost blissful for anyone wanting to get into print. Consider the printed word, for example: thirty years ago, most type was set in molten metal. Then along came photo-typesetting where paper “galleys” or strips of type were cut and pasted onto a page. The natural progression was to computerised image-setters where whole pages of type could be assembled on screen and output as a finished page. 14  Silicon Chip But what about photographs? Until fairly recently, photographs had to be treated as a separate item to be manually inserted into appropriate-size spaces left in the page. Indeed, some magazines are still produced this way. The problem was, and still is, that photographs, which are also known as “continuous tone”, contain a virtu- ally infinite number of shades of grey between white and black. Printing presses, though, have only one shade of ink: black. They cannot simply print shades of grey. To print a photograph using black ink, the photo first has to be converted into a “half tone” where those shades of grey are replaced by varying sized dots, the size in proportion to the density of the shade. Light areas have very tiny dots, darker areas larger dots. In solid black areas, the dots virtually merge. In a way, it is an optical illusion: viewed from far enough away, the eyes converge the halftone’s dots into a fairly faithful reproduction of the original photo. Converting a continuous tone to a half tone normally requires special equipment, techniques and a great deal of skill on the part of the operator. Colour photographs open a whole new can of worms because colour printing is primarily based on printing four colours of ink – cyan (a light blue), magenta, yellow and black. The original photograph has itself to be photographed four times with colour filters to pick out these four colours and at the same time convert each of them into dots of various sizes, as for a black & white image. And to avoid strange patterns in the final print, each of the four screened images has to be photographed at a different angle to the others and the four images have to be printed, one on top of the other, with a very high degree of accuracy. The Kodak Photo CD. In this "pro" version, approximately 100 images can be stored on a CD-ROM. When the discs are scanned, an index card is printed which contains a thumbnail of each image on the disc. A full "pro" disc costs around $750 - $1000. The pro version can also handle larger format transparencies, albeit at significantly increased cost. When printed, the eyes not only converge all the dots, but combine the four colours of ink so that a reproduction of the original photograph is seen. Again, the quality of the printed photograph depends to a very high degree on the skill of the people involved, all along the chain. Then along came computers It took some time before comput- ers had enough "grunt" to do the job and early software was somewhat primitive by today's standards. But at last, type and photographs could all be handled together on the screen with power hitherto only dreamed about – desktop publishing was born. To go with the more powerful computers, desktop scanners started appearing. These early scanners handled only black and white photographs; A WHOLE NEW WORLD IN SCIENTIFIC KITS Circuit boards to be assembled on all models 6995 $ S-CARGO OWI-936K It won't break the speed of sound - accuracy and immediate response to a command is its strength. Controlled by sound commands to an inbuilt condensor microphone. SOUND SENSOR LINETRACKER OWI-963K Similar to mail couriers used in large organisations, follows a designed course using an infra-red emitter and light sensing circuit. Draw you own track and it will follow it. Normal selling price $116.95 9995 $ INFRA-RED SENSOR WAO II Fit a pen into WAO II and it will draw turtle-type graphics - straight lines, circles, even short words and phrases. Design sophisticated programs - optional computer interface connects to Apple II, IIe, GS or IBM PCs. (WAO II Interface $49.70) PROGRAMMABLE HYPER PEPPY OWI-969K Selected as the Institute for Child-hood resources as "100 BEST CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS" and "TOP 10 CREATIVE PRODUCT." Easy to assemble. WORLD OF ROBOTICS PRIORITY Phone (03) 5241 9581 Fax (03) 5241 9089 110 Mt Pleasant Rd, Belmont Vic 3216 email: frances<at>mail.austasia.net http://central.austasia.net/robotics 155 $ OWI-961K ORDER FORM 4995 $ Sound/Touch Sensor SPIDER OWI-962K 9995 $ An intelligent robot that avoids interference. Emits an infra-red beam which detects obstacles, signalling it to change direction. Six legs simulate the walking action of a spider. Normal $116.95selling price INFRA-RED SENSOR MOON WALKER $ OWI-989K 6795 Moonwalker begins to walk when it detects a change in light density and continues its four-legged voyage until instructed by an internal timer to stop. SOLAR SENSOR Item Cat No Qty Price Name................................................................................................. .......................................................................................................... Address.............................................................................................. Bankcard Visa Mastercard Amex Expiry:...................... ____ ____ ____ ____ No: Signature:.......................................................................................... ORDER TOTAL: $ December 1998  15   Raw Scan COMMERCIAL DRUM SCAN Processed using Photoshop today's models handle glorious, living colour. Sure, commercial scanners had been around for a long time – in fact, that’s how most halftones, especially colour, have been processed for years. But what the desktop scanner did was bring this operation down to desktop level and, more importantly, at an affordable price. One stumbling block, though, has been in handling transparencies (or slides). Many desktop scanners had 16  Silicon Chip  transparency options but the quality has, for the most part, always been significantly lower than that of a commercial scan. There have been other options – some viable, some not. One option which we at SILICON CHIP have used with great success is the Photo CD. This is a system introduced a few years ago by Kodak and involves having transparencies scanned by a specialist scanner into a proprietary format which greatly reduces the file size with Raw Scan PHOTO very little degradation, The image files are then stored on a CD-ROM. While the system works well, the problem is time – having to send the transparencies away, have them scanned, get them back, then process them. Incidentally, a Photo CD service is available through all Kodak Image Centres and most dealers. While commercial quality scans (ie, for commercial reproduction) are not cheap Kodak, and others, offer a quite low cost scanning service to the  CD SCAN Processed using Photoshop Raw Scan OLYMPUS ES-10 SCAN  home user. If you have a number of transparencies (positive or negative) and want to be able to access them via your personal computer, this is a most attractive proposition. Enquire at any Kodak photo processor or dealer. Other people have tried using some of the newer digital cameras as slide scanners. While some manufacturers say this is practical, you’ve probably seen the often awful results obtained by the current generation of digital cameras in other magazines! Processed using Photoshop (Unless you spend a lot of money, the results show most digital cameras are not that marvellous when it comes to taking ordinary photos, either.) Digital cameras will get there . . . but they’re not there yet. So are there any other options? For some time we’ve been looking at desktop film scanners. Unfortunately, our expectations based on specifications or salesmen’s hype have never quite been equalled by the results. Either the performance  was way below par . . . or the performance was acceptable but the price tag certainly wasn’t. We were resigned to continuing the Photo CD route. All of which made us look twice at a press release which passed over our desk earlier this year from R Gunz (Photographic) Pty Ltd announcing the release of the Olympus ES-10 Film Scanner. It promised “outstanding image quality” (don’t they all?) but perhaps more importantly, a retail price of around $895. December 1998  17 And the final paragraph was the clincher: “to arrange a sample unit for evaluation call . . .” We called. Unfortunately, we weren’t the first to do so – so it took a while before the sample unit arrived. But arrive it did and we duly unpacked it, read the first page of the instruction manual (does anyone ever get to page 2?) and proceeded toconnect it to one of the computers on our network. Connecting it up The opening window of the Olympus ES-10 control software. Most parameters can be set on-screen before the preview button is selected and after about 10 seconds . . . . . . the preview scan appears in the window allowing further adjustments such as colour balance, density, cropping, etc, The scan button is then selected . . . To be honest, it's hard to go wrong even if you don't read the manual. Connecting it up proved to be the easiest part of all, though nothing was particularly hard. The Olympus ES-10 is designed to work through the computer’s parallel port in “pass through” mode – you can have both the ES-10 and a printer connected at the same time. The computer on which we installed the ES-10 was a network machine without a printer of its own, so it was just a matter of plugging it in. The ES-10 is supplied with film holders for individual (mounted) 35mm transparencies as well as unmounted 35mm film strips (up to 6 frames). It also comes with two software packages, the ES-10 scanner control software (V2.02) and Olympus LAB-10 Image Retouching software. Loading the software was as simple as inserting the floppy discs (yes, software that still comes on floppy!) and letting Windows 95 do the rest (instructions are provided). The software will also operate under Windows 3.1 if you are crazy enough and we assume under Windows 98. Incidentally, the machine we were using was not an all-singing, all-dancing Pentium II. It was in fact a garden-variety 486 2/66 with 24MB of memory (a 486 with 16MB is the minimum requirement though Olympus recommend a Pentium 75MHz with 32MB). We wanted to see how it behaved in a “typical” home computer as distinct from a high-end business machine. The only assembly required was the plugging in of the 35mm film module. An optional module is available to suit the Advanced Photo System cartridge film. Operation Almost all scanner operations are performed in a preview . . . and after quite a delay (up to 5 minutes) the final scan appears. This is then "tweaked" in a photo-processing program. 18  Silicon Chip Not quite desktop size . . . this is one of the drum scanners at SILICON CHIP's printers – Macquarie Print in Dubbo, NSW. . window, which opens when you run the ES-10 software. This window allows you to select various parameters: •  the film type (slides, various brands of colour or B&W negatives) •  the image size you want (pixels is the default but this can be changed to in, mm or cm) •  the input resolution (up to 1770 dpi) and the output resolution •  a number of slider controls which can adjust the colour balance (red, blue and green, plus or minus) •  the exposure bias (brightness plus or minus) •  image rotation (90° per time) •  focus (interacts with focus control on scanner unit) •  gamma curve compensation •  black & white conversion There is also a “preview” button and a “scan” button:. The preview button is selected first which gives a quick image in the viewfinder, allowing cropping and other parameters above to be set. When all is ready, selecting the “scan” button starts the scan proper. The main scan takes some time, depending on the input resolution selected, the image size and amount of cropping. Working on the theory that the highest possible resolution would give the best possible image to work with, we elected to scan our slides at 1770dpi (which is a default anyway). Most slides took in the region of five minutes to scan at maximum resolution, as per the specifications. Olympus also claim an 80 second scan for a 1000 x 1000 pixel resolution. We also took the opportunity to scan several colour negatives – the type you get when you shoot a roll of colour film – and some b&w negatives. With many of today’s quality inkjet printers you can get virtual photographic quality output. Using this scanner, would the average person be able to “print their own photos”, either black & white or colour, from those negatives gathering dust in the bottom drawer, ? Saving The Scans One disappointment we found was that scans only save in bitmap (.BMP) format which has always been our least-preferred option. Most other scanners will allow you to choose the format. By choice, we work in either .TIF (tagged image file format) for b&w, or .EPS (encapsulated Postscript) for colour because these are what the company which prints S ILICON C HIP requires. Still, it’s only a small point because we were going to process all of our scans in Adobe Photo-shop – and this can save in any format. Why Photoshop and not Olympus’s own image retouching software? Simple: we’re use Photoshop every day in the production of "SILICON CHIP" and we know its capabilities. We didn’t want to introduce another unknown into the equation, perhaps comparing apples and oranges. Scan quality So how did the Olympus scans shape up? You be the judge. We have selected the same transparency and scanned it three ways. First of all, we had our magazine printers do a commercial quality scan on their $60,000 rotary drum scanner. Second, we had the slide scanned and put onto CD-ROM. And third, we scanned the slide at maximum resolution with the Olympus ES-10. The first row of photos shows the scans as they appeared directly from the various processes (where necessary converted to CMYK EPS format only). Now you can see why raw scans almost always need some work! The second row of photos shows the same scans after electronic processing using Adobe Photoshop, as we do with all of our photos. Only a small amount of colour correction has been done, though: normally we would correct the scan to match the slide. Yes, there are differences between the three, which we would expect. The Olympus scans are not as good as the Photo CD or drum scans. But the Photo CD Scanner is worth about $20,000; the drum scanner much more. For a sub-$1000 scanner, we don’t think they are too bad. Admittedly, we’re only reproduc- Holders for cut 35mm film strips (above) or single, mounted 35mm slides (left) are supplied. Positive or negative transparencies can be scanned. ing these photographs at 125 x 83mm where in fact all can theoretically be taken to A4 (or full page) size. In fact, the drum scan can go much larger – even the Photo CD scan can, with care, be taken to A3 size. When you think about it, that’s a massive enlargement over the original size (35mm slide 24 x 35mm, A3 297 x 420mm) and “people who know” will tell you that you should never enlarge a 35mm above A4 size. Well, we can and do! Of course, the average home or even small business user will seldom want or need to enlarge to this size so the half page photos give a legitimate guide to what you can expect. The other thing to remember, of course, is that resolution is very much a function of the output device – if you’re scanning pictures for the Internet, for example, you cannot afford to have high resolution because they take too long to load. (Internet photos are generally scanned at 72dpi or dots per inch but even then are saved with a lot of compression to keep the size as small as possible). To sum up, we’re pretty impressed by the Olympus ES-10 scanner, especially at the price. It obviously has limitations but it does a more-than-acceptable job. And the question we asked before about negatives was certainly answered in the positive (do you like that metaphor?). SC Now, boss, can I have one? The Olympus Film Scanner ES-10 is available from many photographic outlets and computer specialists. Trade Enquiries to R Gunz (Photographic) Pty Ltd, 26-34 Dunning Ave, Rosebery NSW 2018. Te l ( 0 2 ) 9935 6600, Fax (02) 9935 6622 December 1998  19