Drum Scanners: Bright Light in a Smaller Spot

For drum-type color scanners, the long-awaited "death knell" for sales may have begun tolling, but there remains a flicker of activity among large commercial printing operations and high-end trade shops that simply do not want to give up the quality and productivity benefits of these units. While the current market levels bear no resemblance to the peak sales years in the early 1980s, a dwindling list of powerful manufacturers continues to supply drum scanners.

Fuji, Heidelberg, and Screen each offers an array of high-quality drum scanners.

Fuji has some 500 Celsis units operating in the United States (of a worldwide base of 1,500 units), Heidelberg has about 1,500 Tango and Primescan units installed worldwide, and Screen reports a worldwide installed base of about 80 of its 8060 model, which it introduced at the Print '97 exposition.

"There's definitely been a drop-off in the sales volume of high-end scanners," says Don Rogers, Heidelberg USA's product manager for image capture. "The market is simply not as robust as it once was. We are seeing customers turning to high-end flatbed scanners and digital cameras. But market demand all depends on a printer's workflow. We still have traditional users of high-end drum scanners, such as the very large high-end printers, but they also buy flatbed scanners."

Adds John Vukovich, Fuji Photo Film's assistant product development manager for electronic imaging hardware, "I would characterize the drum scanner market as stable; in our case, we typically sell one drum scanner a month. Obviously, the market is continuing to shrink. But just when we're ready to put drum scanners to rest, they come back to surprise us. We still get orders from high-end trade shops and large commercial printers."

"While flatbed scanners are approaching drum scanners in terms of quality, they are not there yet," says Ray McAllister, senior manager of product development for Screen (USA). "Drum scanners are still preferred for very high-end work, such as ad agencies that cater to car manufacturers. Drum scanners do not leave anything out of the image. We see printers choosing to utilize flatbed scanners, but keeping their drum systems for picky customers."

Printers are still upgrading their drum scanners. Color Craft of Virginia, a 15-year-old commercial sheetfed printer located in Sterling, Va., replaced an older scanner with a new Screen 8060P in 1996 (believed at the time to be the third such unit installed in the country).

"The 8060P represented a huge upgrade in quality," recalls Sharon Phillips, Color Craft's color department manager. "It is much more reliable and it has better optics than previous units. The lens on a drum scanner brings the information in naturally; I don't need software to sharpen it. Plus, I can adjust it a million different ways to get the image we need."

Color Craft, which serves high-end firms primarily in the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. region, puts 80% of its scanning work on the drum unit; the remainder goes on its flatbed scanner, usually three-dimensional artwork that can't be wrapped around the drum or line shots and black-and-white work.

Also, because of the popularity of computer-to-plate (CTP) production, the company has a need to use the drum scanner for copydot scanning. Clients, managers say, seek to scan older film images that tend to lose their shadow and detail in a digital environment.

Ever since the shop adopted CTP, there's been a big difference in scanning, says Phillips. "With direct-to-plate, we get fantastic details in the shadows; it has added 'weight' to the images. We don't have to manipulate the color as much; with the flatbed scanner, we have to massage the images. We have very savvy, persnickety clients who can tell the difference between a drum scan and a flatbed scan. Also, we'll scan differently if the job is going onto a web press rather than onto a sheetfed press."

However, Phillips concedes, she's beginning to see competition to the drum scanner. "I'm a realist," she admits. "I see a diminishment in the importance of the drum scanner as a direct result of digital photography. Digital cameras are getting better, which poses the biggest threat to drum scanners. We are seeing more digital shots, and they are pretty good."

Imtech Graphics, a full-service electronic prepress house, offers commercial printing, digital asset management, and digital photography. The company operates two 40 six-color Heidelberg sheetfeds, one equipped with a coater, to produce printing jobs for the New York metropolitan region.

Located in Carlstadt, N.J., Imtech is a seven-year-old privately owned company. Last August, it installed a Fuji Celsis 6250 CASC scanner, replacing an older Crosfield drum unit. "The new Celsis scanner is three times faster than our old Crosfield," says Mike Vesia, vice president of manufacturing for Imtech. "Plus, it offers copydot capabilities."

When Imtech was searching to replace the Crosfield, flatbed scanners were never considered. "Our drum scanner is an integral part of our workflow," says Vesia. "We average 1,500 scans a month on the Celsis. It consistently meets the expectations of our Madison Avenue clientele."

There are still some printers that are adding their very first drum scanners.

Impact Digital, a unit of 10-year-old New York City-based prepress and print services provider Impact Graphics, installed a new Primescan D 7100 drum scanner from Heidelberg in January. The company operates three divisions: a high-end retouching and prepress operation serving the fashion, ad agency, and advertising markets; an output service providing digital proofing, large-format printing, mounting, and laminating; and a digital printing and offset operation providing short-run, on-demand printed products.

"We added the Primescan especially for our high-end retouching and prepress operation," explains Steve Kalalian, president of Impact Graphics. "We had been buying our drum scans from an outside service. We felt we needed to install our own system to keep quality scans in house and keep a tighter rein on our color management, gain faster turnaround, and save money. We felt that the Prime-scan, priced at about $60,000, was a good investment; we think we'll get a return within six months."

Impact Digital had been operating a Scitex flatbed scanner, but Kalalian felt that image-intensive jobs for the packaging, automobile, and fashion markets could be scanned only on a high-quality drum scanner. While Impact Digital prides itself on its color expertise and customer-oriented service, it has found that its new purchase offers automation, productivity, and user-friendliness.

"The Primescan's software is very easy to use and so intuitive," says Kalalian. "Any operator with decent experience can operate the scanner. It's almost plug-and-play. The system features a Color Assistant and Geo Assistant that automatically help with cropping, scales, highlights, contrast, shadow, and detail. There's much less reliance on the operator. However, that said, we are experts at color and we can turn off or adjust the scanner's automatic picks to get the scan we want."

Prepress trade shops rely on drum units for utmost quality and productivity.

Desert Color Labs, a 10-year-old prepress shop in Las Vegas, Nev., caters to the publication market in the Southwest. The eight-employee firm, spun out of the Desert Media publication company, serves Desert Media as well as 20 publications, imposing eight-page flats.

"We know that drum-type devices provide a higher-end scan for our clients, plus we get reliability and the larger formats," says Hugh Roper of Desert Color. "We're very happy with our two Screen 8060P Mark II scanners."

On average, Desert Color, which also operates a Purup-Eskofot unit and a Umax flatbed scanner, produces from 25 to 75 scans per day.

"We have some demanding customers, such as Power Boat magazine," explains Roper. "Its photographers shoot high-speed boats on film for full-page or two-page spreads. When the photos are reproduced in the magazine, the editors want the water to be blue. But when we receive the film, the color of the water varies depending on the type of day and the time, and how fast the boat was going. It's our job to scan the photo, color correct it, and enhance the image. Publishers want the shots to look nice and bright."

While most of Desert Color's clients want their images scanned on a drum, some have been experimenting with digital photos. "So far they are not happy with the results," reports Roper. "They have to do color correcting and they're not comfortable with the output."

Here's a description of the drum scanners that are presently available.

Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc. introduced its Celsis 5250 and 6250 machines three years ago. The 5250 is an entry-level, mid-range scanner while the 6250 features a 20 x 28" scanning area that accommodates large originals or many smaller originals. CASC (Celsis Advanced Scanner Control) boosts productivity of the machines up to 40% and achieves the concept of one-touch scanning.

Heidelberg USA has a new family of drum color scanners, known as Primescan, that includes the D 7100 (replaces the Tango), the D 8200 (replaces the TangoXL), and the top-of-the-line D 8400, to be released in June. The units feature software robotic assistants that identify originals, crop the frame, perform color cast alignment, and other jobs; all are equipped with the new NewColor 7000 high-end scanning software and a redigitization feature for copydot scanning.

Screen (USA) offers two models: the 8060P, introduced in 1997, and the 8060P Mark II, which debuted in 1999. The latter unit features a high-tech scanning head with a maximum input size of 23.6 x 21.2", resolution of up to 12,000 dpi, and magnification ranging from 10% to 3,000%.