Digital Innovations

LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast 6.0 scanner software includes SRD (Smart Removal of Defects) that lets you fine-tune dust and scratch removal through its own control panel that lets you determine defect size and intensity for detection and correction. Photos © 2002, Joe Farace, All Rights Reserved

"Video Killed the Radio Star"--The first music video played on MTV

Picture this: You pick up a client in your newly cleaned car to drive them to lunch and discuss a big project that also means big bucks. As the client puts on her seat belt and settles into the passenger seat, you turn on your Sony Xplod MEX-5D1 (www.xplodsony.com) car audio system to play her favorite CD or listen to tunes from a local radio station. After just about the second note, she sits bolt upright and asks, "What are those pictures on your radio?"

Yup, ladies and germs, just an arm's length from your client, all of the very best of your portfolio images are being displayed on a small LCD screen accompanied by music. While you nonchalantly drive to lunch, this slide show is being broadcast from the car audio system...you get the picture. The new Sony Xplod audio system lets you play photographs and even video clips using a Sony Memory Stick--MagicGate only please (see Shutterbug, January 2003)--that's inserted behind the radio's foldout faceplate.

ColorByte's ImagePrint can eliminate the yellow pigment in Epson's UltraChrome inkset as well as provide accurate color profiles for all the Epson media. Its built-in Tint Picker lets you dial-in neutrality or produce almost any tint.

Sharp-eyed readers will, by now, have begun to notice some similarities to Applied Science Fiction's own scanner software for controlling grain and enhancing color, and indeed SilverFast 6.0 provides a way to add these functions to your own film or flat-bed scanner. But wait--as they say on TV--there's more. The plug-in, which for the first time is now a stand-alone application (on the same disc), includes a color cast removal tool that can eliminate problems caused by mixed light sources. There's also a selective Color to Gray feature that lets you tweak gray scale conversion of color images by controlling which shade of gray the color will be converted to. You gotta see it to believe how this works. All of the old good stuff is still there and the plug-in/application provides a three-part histogram (CMY) that shows the 16-bit color space work being done internally so that no scanner information is lost. LaserSoft's SilverFast 6.0 is compatible with Mac OS X (with Aqua interface), OS 9.2, and Microsoft Windows.

Sony's new Xplod audio system lets you play photographs and even video clips from an interchangeable Sony Memory stick--"MagicGate" only--that's inserted behind the radio's foldout faceplate.

Digital Albums With A Difference
There are many album programs available for Microsoft Windows, but the hands-down winner for ease of use, flexibility, and style is 3D-Album (www.3d-album.com). What sets this $39.95 program apart from the others is that it allows you to place all of your images within a virtual environment that compliments and enhances the photographs. The package includes 23 built-in album styles, but there are more than 30 available for free download from the company's web site. The program is so well designed that if you've ever used a mouse you already know how to use it.

Here's all you need to do: Select a folder that has images you want to appear in the album/presentation. I used a folder of JPEG files that were just 400 pixels high and under 30K in size, yet viewing the presentation on a 15" LCD monitor it looked amazingly good. The albums are built so fast you can click the Preview button and almost instantly compile and preview the presentation. This means it doesn't take long to compare those that work better than others with your specific collection of photographs. You control many of the variables within the parameters of the chosen interface, including how long each image is displayed and the kind of musical accompaniment. When you're satisfied with how the album looks, click Build to assemble the final presentation. Output options make it easy to distribute the finished album by CD or Internet upload, although some of the files with music and lots of photos might be a bit large for non-broadband use. Nevertheless, you can turn the finished album into HTML pages, a ZIP file, or self-expandable EXE file.

Pioneer's AVX-P7300DVD has a 7" LCD screen that lets you display your portfolio images much, much larger than the Sony Xplod unit.

You'll Wonder Where The Yellow Went
Epson's UltraChrome inkset is more neutral than their older Archival inkset, and ink jet printers, such as the Stylus Photo 2200, make excellent monochrome prints using all seven ink colors, producing prints with little color crossover and just a little metamerism when changing viewing conditions. Fine art photographers will appreciate that the longevity of these seven-color UltraChrome prints is about 80-100 years when using Epson's Smooth and Textured Fine Art Paper. But, and you knew there was a "but" didn't you? The main restriction on longevity is a yellow pigment that has 50 percent of the lightfastness of the yellow in Epson's Archival inkset. The UltraChrome yellow was developed to provide a greater color gamut, and experts, such as Royce Bair (www.inkjetart.com), agree that the change was worth the longevity tradeoff.

If you want to increase longevity and make more natural prints, you can eliminate yellow when printing gray scale images and produce an image with the longevity that equals the original Archival ink (up to 200+ years). ImagePrint (www.colorbytesoftware.com) eliminates the yellow pigment, provides accurate color profiles for Epson media, and its built-in Tint Picker lets you dial-in neutrality or produce almost any tint. When making monochrome prints, ImagePrint has the ability to print using only the Black Photo (or Matte) and Light Black inks, or it can print with all colors except the yellow, dark cyan, and dark magenta (three colors that cause the most metamerism). ImagePrint works with Mac OS 9.x and Windows computers and Inkjetart.com's price is $495 for printers such as the Epson 2200 with higher prices for large format printers. (ColorByte expects to have a free OS X upgrade available by the time you read this.)