Prepress quality flatbed scanner for medium format 2 1/4 and 4x5 large format film.

The Fuji flatbed scanner provides up to 5000 actual optical dpi (10,000 interpolated) and can handle originals up to 47 x 35 centimeters in size (larger than 11x17 or A3 oversize).

You can get the results in LAB or CMYK, and can work them with the scanner software in these color spaces.

This particular scanner is ideal for graphics design studios, advanced desktop publishing, in-house publishing, professional photography studios, advertising agencies, service bureaus, and any professional prepress shop.

This professional prepress scanner is also capable of allowing you to continue working in the background while the scanner itself is doing the scans. This multi-tasking capability will save you enough time to make it worthwhile to chose this scanner over any hapless models that do not provide continuous use of your Macintosh. Being a product made for graphics design studios, this equipment works only with a Macintosh.

Below is a sample of a portion of a 4x5 chrome. You can see the details of the drill holes and other marks made by the Maya craftsman in the 8th century A.D.

results of scanning 4x5 film on a Fuji C-550 Lanovia flatbed scanner.

Any responsible museum which aspires to achieve professional quality research should have a scanner of this category. A cheap common flatbed just isn't good enough. If illuminated at a different angle, and if enlarged further (not realistic on the Internet with JPEGing), you could figure out which tools were used, at what angle the tool was held, and whether this jade is authentic 7th century (or a recent fake). In the case of this jade plaque, it appears to be authentic. The Maya were capable of drilling through solid jade, indeed even through jade much thicker than this thin pectoral.

This scanner is good enough to allow enlarging this jade plaque to over a meter in width. Actually at full optical dpi it would be possible to enlarge this 4x5 chrome to 5 meters wide by 4 meters high (about 15 feet by 12 feet) at 120 dpi which is enough for some 600 dpi wide format printers (especially for the super-large format that can handle an image 12 feet wide at 360 dpi).

Scanning 4x5 chrome of Maya jade on a Fuji flatbed scanner.

At the left, close-up detail of gouging and carving; at the right, close-up detail of drill holes as well as a gouged circular design. In the middle, the center portion of a jade plaque, probably a pectoral (chest plaque), jadeite.

The Agfascan XY-15 is the same scanner with Agfa software. We recommend you select the Agfascan XY-15 version due to more attentive service from Agfa.

Original 4x5 chrome, Linhof Technikardan, Schneider 180 mm macro lens, Maya jade, 8th century, Central America. Copyright Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR Photo Archive.


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