The Fine Art of Digital Printing, Part 2

By David Em

July 12, 2004

(The Fine Art of Digital Printing, Part 2 :  Page 1 of 1 )

Digital music files are easy to reproduce and distribute. So are digitized movies, to Hollywood's great chagrin. But ultra-high-quality images on paper, aka Digital Fine Art, or DFA, are another matter.

DFA image sources can be created digitally either via imaging software or by scanning original artwork or photographs. Producing satisfactory DFA images is easier when the source data is all-digital. Because it's impossible to perfectly match a computer electronic display on a piece of reflective media such as paper, the goal is to produce a great print based on the digital file, rather than perfectly reproduce an existing artwork such as a painting or a vintage photograph.

The bar's set considerably higher when you try to reproduce an existing object, since when you have the original right in front of you, any deviation in the reproduction is immediately apparent, even to an untrained eye. So before discussing how to print "museum-quality" images on your own desktop, I'll take a look at what it takes to successfully scan an image that already exists in the physical world.

Epson's Perfection 4870 PRO

I decided to see how close I could come to matching original artworks with Epson's $599 Perfection 4870 PRO flatbed scanner (the same unit is also sold with less software for $499 as the Perfection 4870 PHOTO). I've evaluated scanners from HP, Epson, and Microtek over the last couple years, and the 4870 is by far the best desktop scanner we've ever tested in our lab.

A few quick specs: The 4870 features 48-bit color, 4800 x 9600 dpi resolution, and both USB 2 and FireWire connectivity. It scans flat art up to 8.5" x 11.7" and comes with a 6" x 9" transparency unit with film holders for 35mm film strips, medium format, and 4" x 5" film. Its most impressive feature is a Dmax rating of 3.8. (Dmax represents the dynamic range of the tonal gradations in an image.) According to color experts I've spoken to, a rating of 4 is as good as it gets (there are theoretical higher Dmax ratings, but they're apparently beyond human perception).

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