Scanning and Printing Services Through Lodima Digital
I’m happy to announce that I am offering my custom drum scanning and printing services through Lodima Digital. I have been working closely with Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee and their publishing company, Lodima Press, since 2002.
We have set up a new digital scanning and printing studio at their unique Bucks County studio, where I run the Screen SG 8060P drum scanner and several large-format printers for producing black and white and color prints that are often bound for exhibitions, museums, and private collections. I take the highest pride in the quality of the prints I produce, and bring that highest standard to every image a photographer sends me to print.
Along with printing images, I also work closely with photographers in scanning negatives and prints to bring the most out of their images and files, and collaborate with them to produce prints that execute their vision.
SCANNING
Not all drum scanners are created equal, and the Screen SG 8060P is one of the best ever made. Original prints and negatives up to 20x24 inches can be scanned at up to 12,000 samples per inch in 16-bits per channel.
The scanner is only as good as the operator, and scanning negatives is a particular challenge on drum scanner and their dedicated software originally designed for scanning positive transparencies and prints. I've found that the plug-ins that were developed for scanning negatives are unreliable and don't do as good of a job as manual set-up, inversion, and contrast correction. I have created custom profiles and input curves for black and white negatives with various density and contrast ranges. I also perform individual set-ups and a low-resolution scan at 150-300SPI to proof the inversion and contrast correction before starting the full resolution scan.
SCANNING RESOLUTION AND PRICING
8000 to 12,000 SPI is usually overkill for anything larger than medium-format films, but we can accommodate large- and ultra large-format negatives and unmounted prints. Large-format negatives will be scanned at 1200-4800 SPI, depending on the size of original and expected final print size.
Pricing is determined by the size of the original and the input resolution, and include initial contrast adjustment and basic dust removal. Additional retouching and restoration work will be quoted on an individual basis. Scans are provided via Dropbox as soon as they are completed and as a DVD, included with the return of the originals.
PRINTING
My passion is printing black and white, and have spent considerable time profiling and calibrating the different printers for a number of media and ink combinations to meet the needs photographers might have for their images. I prefer to work directly with photographers when processing and preparing their images to print and work to get a paper and print color that best matches the rest of their work.
RETOUCHING AND RESTORATION
I offer retouching for offset reproduction as well as digital restoration of old damaged originals, including scanning and restoring glass plates. Please contact me privately to discuss you individual needs and to get an idea for the scope of the project and the estimated cost.