DRAFAHL

Digital Ice—before, left, and after, right.

Applied Science Fiction

If a few years ago someone had askedus if we thought it would be possible toremove scratches and dust from filmwith the touch of a button, we wouldhave told them it was utterly impossible.When asked whether we thought filmcould be processed without chemistry,we said it sounded like science fiction. Be-lieve it or not, a company called AppliedScience Fiction turned all these andmany more "what ifs" into reality.

Founded in 1995, the scientists at Ap-plied Science Fiction were determined toperpetuate photography by developingnew ways to incorporate photo imaging

and technology. The folks at ASF weren'tinterested in marketing new products,only new ideas. They researched anddeveloped the ideas, proved they wouldwork and then licensed them to OEMs,(Original Equipment Manufacturers), toproduce an end product.

Digital Ice

Their first innovative technologycalled Digital Ice, Digital Image Correc-tive Enhancement, was introduced in1998. Digital Ice identifies surface defectson film as it is being scanned. A separatedefect or "D" channel detects only

things on the surface, not embedded inthe film. Through sophisticated proprie-tary algorithms, the defects are effective-ly "erased" without degrading the imageitself. Ice efficiently removes years ofdamage to an image, unwanted dirt,dust, fingerprints, fungus growth andscratches with the touch of a button.With the flatbed scanners, besidesremoving unwanted surface dust andscratches, it also allows folds and cracksin a print to be whisked away.

This technology is available in certainfilm scanners, minlabs and flat bed scan-ners utilizing Digital Ice technology.Some of the products incorporating

Typical Block DiagramDesktop System

(Digital ICE components are shown in green)

APPLICATION

I

PERSONALCOMPUTER

TWAIN SOURCEMANAGER

ICtMK

TWAIN SOt •

0" MM

SCSI

RGB"

r SURFACE DEFECTS

BLUE RECORD(yellow dye layer)

GREEN RECORD(magenta dye layer)

RED RECORD(cyan dye layer)

J SURFACE DEFECTS

u u u u

0 0 0 0DIGITAL ICE™PROCESSING

•m BUM

0 0 0Film cross-section

Digital ROC—before, top, and after, obov

40 RANCEFINDER • APRIL 2001

Digital Ice are Nikon Super Coolscan2000, Nikon Coolscan III, Acer ScanWit2740S, and Gretag's Master Flex D 1008digital microlab.

Digital ROC

A second technology, called DigitalROC, Reconstruction of Color, is a newsoftware application designed to restorethe original color to faded and off-colorimages. The program uses a set of propri-etary algorithms that reconstruct theimage during the scanning process toprovide a final image that closely resem-bles the original image. When used inthe basic operating mode, Digital ROCcan be turned on or off. While using theadvanced mode, it has the ability totweak and profile the specific device tothe customer's preferences. Once theimage is run through the Digital ROCprocess, it can then be imported in anediting program such as AdobePhotoshop, if any further adjustmentsare required.

Digital GEM

For the photographer who enjoys us-ing higher speed films and is constantlydealing with their increased grain, ASFhas a solution for them too. Grain Equal-ization Management or Digital GEM is atechnology that analyzes the grain struc-ture of the film being scanned and thenalogrithmically removes or reduces thegrain structure. This technique is a greathelp for the APS film format since it is40% smaller than 35mm and has largergrain structure when enlarged. Sincehigher speed films allow for better con-trol of low light, this new Digital GEMtechnology provides the high speedshooter new image control.

Minolta features both the ROC andGEM technologies for enhanced imagesin its Dimage Scan Multi II, multi-formatfilm scanner.

Digital ICE

If you combine the ICE, GEM, andROC technologies into one machine youhave the new Digital ICE technology.This suite that combines all three tech-nologies is pretty new, but expected tobe included with many of the new scan-ners being introduced in the next fewyears. Nikon just announced the Super

www.rangefindermag.com

Coolscan 4000 ED film scanners thatuses this Digital ICE technology. PixelMagic also incorporates all three ASFtechnologies in its new generation ofphoto kiosks.

It was estimated that in 1998 morethan 450 billion images were beingstored in shoeboxes, photo albums,libraries, file cabinets, and a dozen other

places that cause a photographer tocringe. The bulk of the time required forconverting traditional photographicimages to digital is spent editing dust,scratches, color fading, and film grain.The best part of all this ASF technology isthe editing time you will save fixingimages damaged during handling orstorage.

America'sFavoriteTrader

FROM AMERICA'S #1 SPORTS UlThe photographer's choice. The player's choice.The double-sided trader from Sports America.

Sharp graphics, great selection, customizedinformation on both sides. The double-sidedtrader from Sports America is the favorite.

1-800-824-4829www.sports-america.com • e-mail: custserv@sports-america.com

For more information, circle 21341

Digital GEM—before, left, and after, right.

Digital GEM—before, top, and after, above.

Even with samples and illustrations ofhow this technology worked, we foundit still a little hard to believe. We weren'tgoing to just take their word for it, we

were going to run our own tests. Thebiggest problem was that we take verygood care of our images, and finding oneas abused as their samples was difficult.So, we looked for several images that hadseveral duplicates or "seconds." We thencollected a variety of abusive tools likesandpaper, staples, paper clips and began

We scanned the totally unusableimages into our LS-2000 with the ICEturned off. That is actually pretty easy, asthe command on the LS-2000 is hidden,and the default setting is off. At the bot-tom of the scan menu is a feature calledextras. When we selected this menu, wesaw a command called "clean" which is

Digital IGE—before, above, and after, right.

creating our own set of damaged images. really the ICE command. We thenscanned the samedamaged imageswith the "clean"turned on. We wereshocked because thedifference betweenthe two scans waslike night and day!

Now we had our-selves a real problem.All those images wescanned a couple ofyears ago on our Ni-kon 3510 could havebeen scanned on theLS-2000 using theDigital ICE technolo-gy. Instead of hoursof digital repair, wewould have had vir-tually no editing fordust or scratcheswith ICE.

We were really curi-ous exactly howmuch time we couldsave with this newtechnology, so wetried to fix a couple ofthe scanned images

Oorp lUrrl. I HI W«rM Riebt. »«.....!

42 RANCEFINDER • APRIL 2001

with no ICE. Since the damage wassevere, it took a couple of hours on eachimage to make them presentable. Usingthe Digital ICE command, the imageswere fixed in less than two minutes andlooked identical to the ones that took ushours to repair. We did notice that it tooktwice as long to scan with Digital ICEturned on. If you look at the time it takesto repair scanned images, this extra scantime is well worth it.

Digital Dry Film Process

Applied Science Fiction's latest tech-nology Digital Dry Film Process, requiresno water supply, generates no hazardouswaste, reduces the labor required toprocess film, and doesn't even generate afinal film negative. It is designed tobridge the gap between photographyand digital imaging. As the film is runthrough the dry process, each exposedlayer is scanned and combined into onecomplete digital image. The digital file isthen sent to a variety of storage devices

Digital ICE—before, above, and after, right.

such as Zip, CD, or DVD. This processorwill be attached to a digital color printer,so the film can be dry processed, stored,and printed directly onto color paper.The customer walks away with printsand digitally stored images that can bereprinted at a later time. This newprocess is expected to start showing upin some printing labs in the very nearfuture.

If you are like us, you would ratherspend more time taking pictures thanprocessing, scanning, and transferringphotos into image libraries. The way wesee it, Applied Science Fiction just gave

us all more time to concentrate on tak-ing pictures. If this is what AppliedScience Fiction can design in just a fewshort years, just what does photogra-phy's future hold when in their hands?Pretty exciting, huh?

For more information, on AppliedScience Fiction products, log on andcheck www.asf.com.

lack and Sue Drafahl are freelance journal-ists/photographers living in the Pacific Northwest.They have owned and operated a custom lab andservice bureau, Image Concepts, for many years.They can be reached at: concepts@padfier.com/.

IMAGEj imaging for the

21st century

With Herff Jones' Image 21 System studioscan order all their portraits over the internet.Deluxe Portraits, Senior Collection Composites,Holiday Greeting Cards, B&W/Sepia Toned Prints,AND all services such as Digital Retouching,Finishes and Mountings!

www.hjpro.com

are you connected?Herff Jones brings you the opportunity to increase your sales andsave time by simplifying one of your most tedious tasks- preparing orders.With Image 21 and Kodak's Professional Studio Link Softwareyou can involve your clients in the customization of theirpictures and build greater revenues.

With Herff Jones' Image 21 System you'll be able to:• Enhance your creativity through variable crop capability• Increase your average sales order by:

Improved presentation toolsOffering new imaging productsOffering side-by-side and group image selectionDisplaying Pictures in multiple sizes

• Increase your productivity by:Streamlining tedious and error-prone order preparationSimplifying order trackingSaving days on proofing and order shipping

Contact your local Sales Representative today for more information!New to Herff Jones? Log on to www.hjpro.com andcontact the Sales Representative in your area!

y HERFFJONES I

PHOTOGRAPHY DIVISION

12221 Riverwood DriveBurnsville, MN 55337

952.890.2200800.328.2924

©2001 Herff Jones Photography Division

www.rangefindermag.com 43