Hugh,
A friend has put together some information which may help your client in this regard:
Philip Greenspun (the author of "Philip & Alex's Guide To Web Publishing") Photo Net is a fabulous resource - lots of impartial editorial and member contributed reviews and advice, and lots of expert forums to ask for advice and recommendations:
http://www.photo.net/
TidBITS, my favourite Mac newsletter and discussion group, has done a lot of coverage of digital photography, photo printing and printers, and screen display. There has been a recent series about photo sensors, calibration, etc., and continuing lively discussion on the TidBITS Talk list. I'd suggest searches of the newsletters and the Talk list:
http://www.tidbits.com/
And another outstanding resource:
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints.html
Calibrating her screen might help a lot; if her monitor is properly calibrated, she might not need a new printer at all. Though there was an excellent article in Tidbits about rgb calibration your friend should read, she should keep in mind that CMYK might be better (the explanation of theory and practice is outstanding, so she should read it either way). There are good tutorials on calibration, colour profiles, colour spaces here, and there's stuff on photo.net too:
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints.html
http://www.normankoren.com/color_management_4.html
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/monitor_profiling.shtml
If she wants to use Apple's built in Colorsync rather than Adobe's built in Photoshop tools, she should check out the excellent resources on the Apple website for Colorsync. Colorsync has ICC profiles built into it, and makes choosing colour spaces a snap:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/colorsync/ (download the PDF - it's excellent)
http://www.apple.com/pro/photo/
Hope this is helpful. It's always better, I feel to tweak a present system over buying a new one.
Best of luck Hugh,
Peter Kaulback
Hugh Vandervoort wrote:
Current printer is an Epson Photo Stylus 1280. This may be the weak link as she's really not happy with the finished product-not enough detail when scanned at 600 DPI. A local pro has suggested the Epson 2200. Amother suggested the Epson 4000. Scanner is Epson Expression Professional. She likes this scanner because it can scan a whole sheet of slides at once-three strip containg 5-6 images. She would like to have a backup unit with similar capabilities. Suggestions appreciated. Another person suggested scanning at 1600 DPI for better results. Another problem is that the Epson drivers and software for OS X are quite different from those for OS 9. The scanner doesn't integrate with Photoshop and scanning options are more limited. She's willing to buy a new computer and I think Mac's limited installed base is working against her in terms of available software, hardware and support.I admit to some prejudice here, but this Mac doesn't do anything an x86 can't do cheaper and faster. I think she got some bad advice on this purchase, and she's justas comfortable with Windows as Mac (Which is to say, not very). The G5 is a nice machine, but it's still a Mac-overpriced and unnecessary to the applications she uses. We're going to try out her Dell 4600 (2.8 GHz, 512 DDR 333) this weekend just to compare speeds. The files she generates are often 200-300MBs, and we expect a certain slowness in processing them. Thanks for your input **********************************************************
Maybe a G5 dual 2.5 GHz cpu and a gig of ram would satisfy her needs for a real computer http://www.apple.com/powermac/, far more powerful than similarly equipped x86 based systems.
What equipment is she utilizing presently? Specific models used would be a good start.
What problems does she have right now? How long to process a job? How long does each piece take to accomplish it's job?
Peter Kaulback
Hugh Vandervoort wrote:
My client takes High reolution aerial photographs. The negatives are developed for her, she then scans a full sheet, selects the images she
wants
and prints copies for her clients. She prints some of these photos using a cibachrome process which is being discontinued. She would like to be able to print better copies than her high-end Epson equipment can handle. She's using a MAC G4 with 768 MBs of RAM and is willing to get a real computer if that would improve things. Her 600 DPI
or
better scans tend to generate very large files which she manipulates with Photoshop and Illustrator. Any suggestions on equipment or where to get more info greatly
appreciated.
-- -- I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) ============= PCWorks Mailing List ================= Don't see your post? Check our posting guidelines & make sure you've followed proper posting procedures, http://pcworkers.com/rules.htm Contact list owner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Unsubscribing and other changes: http://pcworkers.com =====================================================
