When Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, after the take-over of Linotype-Hell, decided not to continue the high-end scanner development and production, there were no more software updates for their many scanners in the field. Heidelberg high-end scanner operators were stuck with LinoColor on Mac OS 9. About a year ago, LaserSoft Imaging released the first version of SilverFast specially tailored to the Heidelberg scanners.

The first version of SilverFast to become available was SilverFast for the family of TOPAZ scanners. Later, the Tango and NexScan range followed suite. Scanner operators can now upgrade all of their workstations to Mac OS X, and benefit from SilverFast’s high-end scanning features.

Other than LinoColor or NewColor, SilverFast Ai STUDIO immediately launches a colour preview on which all necessary corrections can be made. The barcode-supported automatic SilverFast IT-8 Calibration can be done within the same rescalable preview environment. Scanner operators who need to deliver a fully ready scan, have all the tools at hand in SilverFast. They don’t have to change anything about their workflow.

LinoColor users will quickly get acquainted with the Auto Pilot function of SilverFast.

For the processing of negatives, SilverFast’s NegaFix function offers more than 120 different scanning profiles, as well as a Profile-editor. A special feature is the fully automated descreening function.

The screen is automatically detected and removed. In order to achieve good sharpening, a freely adjustable unsharp mask may be additionally allocated to the scan.

SilverFast offers an Expert mode for almost any function in SilverFast. The Descreen Expert mode will be very familiar to LinoColor users as here too, they have the option to set “bright and dark edges”. The combination of SilverFast Ai Studio and SilverFast HDR Studio allows for the high productivity needed by the environments where these scanners are typically used.

The Job Manager, which we reviewed earlier, and which is available in SilverFast Ai Studio, allows for automatic processing of multiple images into any user-selectable directory. Images of over 1 GB may be opened in less than 1 second by means of the embedded HiRePP feature, processed in real-time, and may then be handed over to the Job Manager for automatic final processing.

The (Heidelberg) Linotype-Hell Tango is a vertical drum scanner with Photomultiplier Technology. The Heidelberg Tango is specially designed for high-resolution scans. The scan area is an acryl drum. The scanninig process takes place with the optical system spiraling down the image. This allows the scanner to get very sharp results and reach a density of up to 4.2 Dmax.

Even in dark areas, the scanner recognizes slight nuances and is able to create an optimal depth effect. The resolution is between 100 and 11000dpi. This means that pictures can be enlarged up to 3000% without loss of quality.

The Topaz scanner is a flatbed scanner.