Don’t Write Scanners Off Just Yet

by: Erik Vlietinck - Last Updated: Wed 01 August 2007

Dina Goldwasser, Product Communications Manager, Scanners, Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group, wrote an article on scanning and (Kodak --her observations apply to all scanning applications and devices) the use of scanners in the 21st century.

When the so-called ‘digital revolution’ started 20 years ago, it was fashionable to view its progress in terms of waves (some readers may recall the Third and Fourth Waves).  Succeeding waves swept away technologies and solutions which had outlived their usefulness; initially analog equipment such as repro cameras and ‘wet proofing’ systems, and then even such digital solutions as dedicated typesetting systems and electronic page composition (EPC) systems.

A current misconception is that scanners have shared a similar fate.  However, while all-digital workflows, and especially the adoption of digital cameras, have certainly impacted on scanner installations in the graphic arts, a look outside the sector reveals a very different picture.  Elsewhere installations are buoyant, driven by factors ranging from the need to digitize millions of ‘legacy analog images’ to the continued preference of a significant number of professional photographers for medium- and large-format, non-digital cameras.  As a result, the number of worldwide installations of professional colour scanners is still growing.

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