Re: [ARSCLIST] Preservation media WAS: Cataloguing still :-)

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/09/06, Tom Fine wrote:
> I've run into the same thing with Kodachrome slides, even when they're
> scanned in a Nikon professional-grade slide/negative scanner. They
> never seem as crisp or color-deep as the original. Now, the mitigating
> factor is, I can't afford tens of thousands for a 6 foot by 4 foot
> high-def TV system, so I can never project the digital images as big
> as my $10 garage-sale Kodak slide projector and free-for-taking
> conference room pull-down screen can do with the originals. I worry
> that, as good as digital imagery has gotten in the past decade, it's
> still far short of what the best chemicals, mirrors and lenses could
> do a century ago.

Or half a century, if you are looking at Kodachrome II. 

I have always used Leitz projectors, so I am even less satisfied than
you. 
> 
> Also, I've been fortunate enough to find original editions of a few
> old (1920s and 1930s) non-fiction books I've had reprints of for
> years. The quality of litho or plate-stamped images in the old books
> are leagues better than what's in the reprints. 

The photographic process for making printing blocks from drawings came
into use in the 1880s, and the standard was IMO higher then (for line
work) than it has ever been since. 

Colour printing, on the other hand, has continually improved and is
probably better now than ever before. 

> Now, one factor is
> that the reprints were done short-run and probably at a compromise
> cost. But also, get a modern non-fiction book that has the typical
> photos section. Usually it falls far short of the older books -- even
> as recently as the 60's and 70's.

Letterpress blocks on glossy paper give better results than the
currently standard offset litho on matt paper - but an expensive book on
photography, printed with duotone, can be first class. It is the routine
quality books that have gone down hill, both in pronting and binding.

> 
> By the way, one solution to all this is simple. Every publisher has a
> website today. Every book should have an online component where things
> like color images can be available. Publishers have been snail-slow in
> most cases to understand the multi-media potential of their products.

Better to put a CD at the back with the pictures on it. Web sites are
liable to vanish.

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx