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[OM] Re: Ok, so it was a little hyperbole

Subject: [OM] Re: Ok, so it was a little hyperbole
From: <bs.pearce@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 22:14:16 -0500
>
> In all the discussions of film scanners, it appears to me that
> reasonably priced scanners (i.e., non-drum) are not designed well enough
> to deal with dynamic range.  Am I interpreting correctly?  If so, then
> why not?
The drum scanner is a very different beast. It's amazing what money will do.

First is the photo multiplier tube. To get all that dynamic range, that's 
what it takes. Why not one in a desktop scanner? They're in comparison 
large, they are expensive, and, well, they are a tube. Try selling that! 
(last summer, I met the daughter of the inventor of the PMT. He was an 
engineer at CBS in NYC, and made essentially no money off it.)

The other thing money buys is software. Where your scanner has drivers and 
some fundamental operating software, those things have dedicated software 
that includes things like unsharp masking on more levels that you can 
imagine. It's ironic that the image from a drum, certainly the gold 
standard, has been manipulated more than we could ever imagine before it 
gets to the parts of its software that can be changed.

I think that's where the Imacons fall down.

Bill Pearce 



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