online picture framing and giclee printing service

About our scanning » technical guide

Scanning Production

When your order arrives, we will check your instructions thoroughly and book your work in by allocating a job number and date for completion. This will then be confirmed by email if an email address has been provided.

All transparencies & negatives are handled with utmost care, and special attention is made to ensure any images that need to be removed from their original mounts are returned to you as you sent them to us. All drum scanning work is pre-scanned before removal from mounts to ensure no transparency is placed in the wrong mount after the scanning and cleaning process is complete.

Regardless of which scanner is used all final images are checked for colour accuracy against the original as viewed on an industry standard lightbox. With negative film, where there is no visual reference, the colour is set by eye and any obvious casts removed to produce a pleasing image.

The finishing process includes all colour and density adjustments and cleaning of the final image at 100% as viewed in Photoshop. All scanning and post-scan editing is done in 16-bit with the result being saved to an 8-bit file. We work in a fully colour calibrated environment on both MACs and PCs.

All Images are written to DVD or CD depending on the number of images and written in ISO9660 Cross Platform Format.

ACTPIX Scanning Options

Drum Scanner
ICG Sentinel

These scans are produced to the highest standards and are suitable for Global Image Libraries.

Standard Finished File:
Uncompressed TIFF
24 bit RGB Colour (8 bit)
Size : 60mb - 300mb (flattened with no layers paths or channels)
No sharpening
Cleaned to 100%
Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB
Levels Correction

Scanner Specification:
Up to 8000 dpi optical resolution
Precision triple photomultiplier drum scanner
Enlargement range 20-4000% continuously variable
Density range 0-4 D. Focus Automatic or manual with user defocus
Image file format RGB or CYMK TIFF
Maximum scan area - 425x 275mm

Supported Film Types:
Medium Format no larger than Standard 10X8
35mm single frame (No strips or Rolls)
Transparencies
Color negative
Black and white
Black and white negative

Scanning Process:
Transparencies are carefully cleaned before scanning. They are secured onto the drum with mounting gel and clear film. The drum is loaded into the scanner and a preview of the whole drum is made. A prescan is then made for each image and a focus point is selected for it. Adjustments are also made to select highlight and shadow points to provide a full dynamic range and balanced scan. Once the file has been scanned the originals are cleaned again before being returned to their original sheets or individual mounts.

Film Scanner (Kodak)
Kodak HR500 Universal Film Scanner Suitable for negatives and fast turnaround scanning.

Standard Finished File:
Uncompressed TIFF
24 bit RGB Colour (8 bit)
Size : 60mb - 128mb (flattened with no layers paths or channels)
No sharpening
Cleaned to 100%
Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB
Levels Correction

Scanner Specification:
CCD: KODAK KLI-6013 Sensor 6002 element tri-linear color array with 3 x 6002 pixels
Max File Size: 128 MB
Density Dynamic Range: 3.2 minimum

Supported Film Types:
Medium Format no larger than Standard 5X4
35mm single frame or strips no longer than 250mm (No Rolls)
35mm plastic mount (Cardboard mounts can be used if sealed and clean of tape)
Transparencies
Colour negative
Black and white
Black and white negative

Scanning Process:
Each transparency or negative is placed in a film holder specifically designed for the film size and loaded into the scanner. A preview is made to adjust the colour and density to closely match the original. A high res scan is then made with Digital ICE to remove small amounts of dust and dirt. The image is cropped as close to the film rebate as possible but there may be a small loss of image area. Please note Digital ICE won't work with some older black & white film and Kodachromes, these will have to be cleaned manually and there may be an additional charge.

Flatbed Scanner
Fujifilm Finescan 2750

Suitable for scanning reflective Colour and Black & White Artwork up to A3+ (350mm x 470mm).

Scanner Specification:
Fujifilm Super Linear CCD. 10500 element RGB
Dynamic range of 0.0D - 3.7D
Native resolution 762, 2743dpi
Output resolution up to 7500dpi
Enlargment range 2500%

Scanning Process:
All your original prints and artwork are handled with extreme care using cotton gloves and an anti-static brush. A greyscale is used to ensure colour accuracy.