Scanning Systems--Resolved to Scan

The robotic scanner of yesteryear is long gone. Today's higher optical resolutions, advanced color user interfaces, fully integrated ICC-compatible software and faster scanning speeds are helping the prepress workflow scream.

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO

Does it seem like the scanning market is standing in the conservative corner of digital prepress? Sure, glamorous, big-name PDF workflows are topics of industry discussion and intrinsic analysis, digital halftone proofing and digital platesetting devices duke it out for the time, attention and dollars of prepress executives and print production professionals—but what about the scanning market? Does anything scan-dalous ever happen to these image manipulators?

As of this minute, there are no major arguments (lest the 'now commonly recognized flatbed scanners will make drum scanners obsolete' message be curbed—and projections for exactly how Creo's recent purchase of Scitex's digital prepress effort not be waged) or discoveries to trumpet the scanning market, at least nothing of a truly scandalous nature, in recent months.

However, throughout last year, there were new launches of both flatbed, predominantly, and drum varieties. There were refinements of existing scanning systems, giving rise to next-generation scanners with better optical resolutions and higher production speeds.

True, the robotic scanner of yesteryear is long gone. High resolution scanners, capable of imaging everything and the kitchen sink (practically) are now touting benefits from lower shadow detail to on-the-fly digital descreening to extraordinary color fidelity—all made possible by superior optics and high-speed automation.

Today's scanners capture brilliant highlights, fine details, rich colors and hues of any original transparent, positive or negative and reflective media, in a single pass. Aren't scanners wonderful? Scanners are the 'good pupils' of digital prepress.

There is rarely a controversy, and hardly ever an all-out marketing war, between top scanner manufacturers. They just focus on delivering scans, in light of the following market trends.

As image quality for flatbed scanners accelerates, scanning techniques can be borrowed from the drum scanner to push image quality to new levels in the flatbed market. Drums scanners, such as the Tango from Heidelberg Prepress, which features LinoColor 6.0 color management, and Creo's Renaissance II copydot drum, provide a wider density range, with more detail and crisper sharpness, than do their flatbed counterparts.

For quite some time, it seems scanner hardware has been decreasing in cost, while increasing in variety and flexibility. Nice result: Flatbed scanners, growing more sophisticated with each passing season and certainly more plentiful throughout the market, are also growing more affordable.

The flatbed scanner is capturing more image information—more color, more intrinsic detail, more shadow—than ever, aided by advanced, bundled software products. For both flatbed and drum scanners, scanning software has greatly escalated the speed, quality and extent of image capture.

"Naturally, the true heart of any scanner is the software," states Don Rogers, product manager, image capture, Heidelberg Prepress. LinoColor 6.0, utilized in Heidelberg Prepress scanning systems—including the new Nexscan—features embedded ICC profiles for new workflows.

"With this version, the user can read and write embedded ICC profile image data, the scanned high-resolution data and the pertaining attached ICC profile can now be output to one file—this means improvements to workflows incorporating applications such as PhotoShop 5.0, QuarkXPress 4.0 and Helios OPI 2.0," Rogers reports.

What else does this mean? ICC advancements within LinoColor 6.0 and comparable color management initiatives mean ICC profiles need no longer be manually assigned: Embedded ICC profiles with LinoColor 6.0 are supported even if various files are opened.

Using LinoColor's ICC profile editor, it is now possible to individually modify ICC output profiles, ICC monitor profiles and ICC input profiles by LCH corrections. For output, color manipulations can also be carried out on the ICC output profiles by means of the CMYK correction functions—very useful for printing operations, for example, that want to exactly match their output profiles to their printing devices in terms of color.

As new scanning systems are launched throughout this year, consider the bundled scanning software for color management, as well as the ability of the devices, drum or flatbed, to support flexible, open scanning. Goodbye robot—hello automated opportunity.

The Market Now. . .

Drum or Flatbed, Copydot or Not, the Market Is Resolved To Scan, Scan, Scan

Agfa's AgfaScan T5000 CCD features Twin-Plate technology, which optimizes scanning of both reflective and transmissive originals. The AgfaScan T5000 has an input size of 9.27x12˝ for transparency work and 12x17˝ for reflective art. Software with the T5000 includes ColorExact for RGB/CMYK scanning and ColorTune Pro system-wide color management.

Creo Products—which recently purchased the digital prepress component of Scitex—is focusing its scanning activities on the Renaissance II copydot scanning system and its related Copydot Toolkit, which offers the capability of producing composite-color PDF files. The Copydot Toolkit, by Creo, offers the added versatility of creating imposition-ready, full-page PDF files from many types of copydot input files, including those with special colors. Files produced in this way can be streamlined within PDF workflows, such as Creo/Heidelberg's PDF-based Prinergy.

The Fujifilm C-550 features a 16-bit image capture at optical resolutions of up to 5,000 dpi that can be interpolated up to 10,000 dpi. This large-format flatbed scanner affords the user the flexibility to position originals anywhere on the platen, achieving the highest resolution and quality results. The C-550 incorporates a large 13.8x18.5˝, flush mounted fixed platen which enables up to 80 35mm transparencies to be scanned at one time. An 8,000-pixel CCD array provides quality reproduction and ensures smooth results over the entire tonal range. With Fujifilm's C-scan interface software application, users can achieve high quality CT, linework and descreening at the touch of a few buttons.

Heidelberg Prepress' latest scanning creation is the Nexscan F4000 Series CCD flatbed scanners. Nexscan F4000 utilizes Heidelberg's unique Direct Capture Technology (DCT), which enables the CCD camera to be positioned directly below the original. The manifold benefits of DCT include: no breaking of the light path; no fall off in light intensity and no distortion of signal by mirrors. The Nexscan scanners are the result of market feedback from both of the company's flagship scanner products, TOPAZ and TOPAZ iX, as well as the culmination of Heidelberg's research and development in scanning and color management technology. Nexscan F4100, with its trilinear color CCD array (3x8,000 pixel), is the scanner for customers whose primary focus is color scanning and descreening. Nexscan F4100 was designed to meet the challenges of today's changing marketplace with users experiencing more short-run jobs, each with a larger number of color images.

Nexscan F4100 is ideal for printers of all sizes, trade shops, service bureaus, advertising agencies, graphic designers, publishing houses, newspapers, corporate communications departments and in-plants. Nexscan F4200 is a multipurpose scanner combining professional color scanning with high quality copydot and line art scanning. The Dual-CCD technology inside Nexscan F4200 with the additional 12,000-pixel black-and-white CCD array gives customers the performance they need to move on to a fully digital workflow. Driven by LinoColor 6.0, with more than 100,000 installs, Heidelberg continues to offer its fully integrated, ICC-compatible color management under Apple's ColorSync and Microsoft's Windows ICM.

Optronics' ColorGetter Eagle delivers high resolution of up to 8,128 dpi of true, non-interpolated resolution across an 11x15˝ image area. ColorGetter Eagle's 600 to 1,200 rpm drum speed provides fast capture of any type of flexible media that mounts on a removable drum. Optronics offers several software scanning solutions ranging from ColorRight for Macintosh to the latest cross-platform ColorRightPro, which adds a range of specialized high-end tools for PC, NT and Macintosh users. ColorRightPro features a 48-bit dynamic range interface which conforms to ColorSync ICC profiles, and supports easy calibration for both proof and press fingerprinting, along with auto descreening.

Purup-Eskofot's EskoScan Vincent is an A3 flatbed scanner equipped with an advanced color user interface. EskoScan Vincent is a copydot scanner that includes the ICC-based management system, EskoColor, and EskoProof, which allows copydot files to be descreened and proofed using CT color printers. The Vincent package from Purup-Eskofot also includes the image editing tool, PERfection, which has been developed specifically for the cleaning and editing of copydot bitmap files. Purup-Eskofot's A3 scanner is supplied with a Pentium PC with 256 MB of RAM. The scanner is also packaged with the latest version, 8.0, of Purup-Eskofot's EskoScan Job Preparation Station (JPS), which hosts PERfection, EskoColor and EskoProof functionality.

Screen (USA) is continuing to redefine its popular Cezanne line of scanning systems. Most recently, Screen began marketing its latest Cezanne incarnation, Cezanne Elite. Building upon the features of Screen's Cezanne 5000, the new Cezanne Elite flatbed color scanner is twice as fast as the 5000 unit. In just one hour, a skilled operator can scan up to 104 35mm originals at 350 dpi and 400-percent magnification, or 94 6x7cm originals as 300 dpi and 250-percent magnification, including the time required to convert from RGB to CMYK. A key feature of the Cezanne Elite is its 'deMoire' feature.

The Elite is an all-in-one scanner, capable of scanning virtually anything that fits onto its A3-plus scanning flatbed, which is actually a removable tray. Equipped with a three-line CCD array that contains 8,000 CCD elements in each line, the Cezanne Elite automatically calculates the ideal path for the CCD array's XY movement, making batch scanning fast and efficient. The Cezanne Elite offers a range of 589 to 5,300 dpi optical resolution across the entire platen.

The new Scitex EverSmart Jazz line of scanners features built-in XY Stitch scanning technology that allows the user to achieve high-quality scans. An A4 original can be scanned at an optical resolution of up to 2,540 dpi to capture maximum information. EverSmart Jazz series flatbed CCD scanners feature a trilinear 3x8,000 pixels color CCD and deliver size-independent resolution at a maximum scanning resolution of 6,000 dpi and a maximum optical resolution of 2,000x6,000 dpi. EverSmart Jazz+ offers a 7,620 dpi maximum scanning resolution, with a 2,540x7,620 dpi optical scan. Transparencies and reflective materials up to 12x17˝ fit the scanning area. EverSmart Jazz scans at 15 scans per hour.