From: James Young (jamiehy@globaldialog.com)
Date: 05/24/01-11:58:05 AM Z
>CK,
>
>Publishers are almost universally going to prefer transparency film. However,
>unless you have a contractual obligation that actually requires you to
>provide transparencies, color negative would be a much better choice for the
>work you've described. High speed color negative film is nothing short of a
>miracle.
>
>The prepress industry is slowly accepting color negative material, but most
>scanning software is optimized for transparency film and reflection art. To
>achieve excellent reproductions in your book, from color negative film, you
>will need the expertise of a good technician (someone who has done this
>before). However, if your book publishing venture is like most, you will
>never have the opportunity to meet or interact with the scanner operator. If
>this is the case, you may want to consider having high quality prints made
>for submission to the publisher (unfortunately adding another expense to your
>venture). They may do a better job of scanning prints than negative film.
>
>A little upfront research through your publisher would be a good idea.
>Explain to them that your working conditions require color negative film and
>you want to know if you can submit the original film, or would they prefer a
>print. See what happens.
>
>Good luck!
>
>Bill Kennedy
This is quite true but quickly changing. The reason prepress houses
prefer transparencies is because when they switched to digital they
designed the scanning software to fit existing needs. It's easy to
get a great scan from a color negative, but often the software used
by the prepress houses isn't the way to go.
The thing to do is find a lab that caters to the portrait industry,
as the portrait industry is based around color neg film, and is
entering the digital world from a different direction. It's all a
matter of who is writing the software, and what the goal is . The
transparency preference is an arcane holdover from the days when they
made color seps directly from the original chromes. The software
written for prepress just isn't designed for negs, but does exist for
the marketplace that needs it. Find a lab or imaging center doing
large volume portrait work and has the right stuff.
Jamie Young
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