Creating a Digital Original

The purpose for creating a Digital Original is to produce a scan from either a transparency or reflection print that has accurately captured the detail and colour of the original in such a way that the digital image forms a basis for all further applications.

LAB Colour Space

LAB-BadgeColourSpaceWe scan to the device independent colour space called CIELAB. It describes all the colours visible to the human eye, it's bigger than RGB, and therefore much larger than any CMYK gammut. Producing a scan like this is perfect for creating a 'Digital Original' as it retains as much digital colour information as possible, which allows repurposing for any type of printing condition, whether it be CMYK offset printing, RGB poster printing, or an online rendition.

600dpi Resolution

600dpi-badgeThe more resolution you scan to, the greater possibilities for enlargement. We scan directly to 600dpi (dots per inch or pixels per inch). This allows an A4 size Digital Original to be enlarged and output to A2 size at full print resolution. This gives your Digital Original the flexibility for future projects to include posters and exhibition banners.

DPIImageExample

DPIImageCrop
A4 Digital Original scanned at 600dpi, the equivalent of A2 at 300dpi - sharpness and detail is retained.

DPIEnlargedImage
A4 image at 300dpi, enlarged to A2 at 300dpi - image becomes soft and some detail is lost.

16 bits per Channel

16bit-badgeA standard image normally has 8 bits per channel. Simply put, each channel of an image is basically a greyscale image. In an 8 bit image, each pixel in the channel is a level of grey between 0 and 255. Scanning to 16 bits per channel increases the choice in levels of grey dramatically to 65,536 per pixel! The more levels of grey you have in a channel, the more flexibilty you have with colour correction and retouching.