Photographic Material Scanning

In the field of digitizing photographic archives, Realiscape Typorama has completed the digitization of hundreds of thousands of transparencies, negatives and photos of photographic collections from libraries, museums and archives.

Our equipment can accommodate any photographic format; all the standard sizes of transparencies [35 mm, 4"x5" (94x119 mm), 24x65 mm, 6x6/6x4 cm, 60x70 mm, 6x8 cm, 6x9 cm, 6x12 cm, 6x17 cm, 4.5x6 cm, 9x12 cm, 13x18 cm], but also any arbitrary transparency size up to A3+ using identical quality, but less productive scanners. Common scan resolutions are 2048 and 4096 dpi, but they can scale up to 8000 dpi optical resolution varying on the equipment used and the slide size. We can also scan photographic prints up to A3+.

All of the scans are performed by highly trained technical staff usually holding University or Technological degree.

We are able to digitize thousands of transparencies per day, in top quality, using specialized workflows and using color management techniques.

Quality control is achieved by extensive sampling using ANSI methodologies, ensuring via our spectrophotometers and colorimeters consistent color output in all stages of production and using a special proofing device (Kodak Matchprint 800 A0 Proofer) verified against FOGRA 27 (ISO/DIS 12647-2:2004) standards for use in the publication industry.

We deliver the scanned images in a variety of formats such as TIFF (in a lossless compressed format like LZW), or JPEG (with maximum quality or any other setting that we agree with our clients).

We can also scan at 16 bits per channel (all of our scanners can deliver 36 bit files), resulting in richer colors and smoother gradations but doubling the file size and the scan duration.

Realiscape Typorama doesn’t provide preservation services of the originals, except for basic cleaning with soft antistatic brush and hand held bulb duster (we don’t use canned or compressed air in any case). Our technicians always wear cotton photographic gloves for the purpose of avoiding marks on the transparency of photographic print surface.

Basic tonal and color corrections are applied to the scans in order to faithfully reproduce the original. Dust removal, cropping, or heavy color restoration (in order to render the original scenery) are provided upon request.