Artwork & Film Scanning Services
We specialize in the creation of impeccable digital master files, setting the foundation for exceptional fine-art printing and reproduction. We transform your original artwork and film into color-matched, meticulously cleaned, and refined digital assets, ensuring your vision is preserved with absolute fidelity.
The Foundation of Fidelity: Why Your Digital File Matters
The quality of any print is intrinsically linked to the quality of its source file. We provide artists and photographers with the critical first step: a high-resolution, color-accurate digital master. This foundational file unlocks limitless possibilities for giclée printing, archival preservation, and portfolio development, ensuring your work is represented at its absolute best.
Our Process: Uncompromising Detail & Color Accuracy
We collaborate with a diverse community of artists, handling everything from paintings and drawings to watercolors, illustrations, and mixed media works on paper.
Utilizing our new, professional-level large-format scanner, we capture your originals at resolutions up to 1200 PPI. Our color-calibrated workflow guarantees stunning detail, smooth tonal transitions, and the precise capture of surface texture, preserving the full depth of shadow and highlights details inherent in your original piece. We also expertly digitize and restore photographic prints and family photo albums.
We suggest an in-house consultation to determine the best method for each artwork capture.
Scanning vs. Photographic Capture: The Technical Advantage
For most two-dimensional artwork, direct flatbed scanning is the superior digitization method. The controlled, even lighting and perfect registration of a scanner, combined with specialized calibration software, consistently yield files with greater sharpness, color accuracy, and detail than even the highest-resolution photographic capture.
To illustrate: an 16inch wide artwork scanned at 1200 PPI results in a capture of 19,200 pixels. Printing at 300dpi standard allows us to make a print that is 64” long with no loss of quality whatsoever. Photographing with a 100mp camera for instance would only allow us to make a print that is 38” long without loss of quality.
The Hallmarks of a Master Scan
When you entrust us with your work, the resulting file will:
- Achieve exceptional color accuracy, matching your original.
- Resolve the finest details with absolute clarity.
- Exhibit flawlessly smooth tonal gradations.
- Faithfully retain critical information in both highlights and shadows.
- Facilitate precise editing and clean extractions due to its ultra high resolution.
- Form the perfect foundation for gallery-quality reproductions.
- Serve as a precise, archival-grade copy of your work for perpetuity.
Large-Format Flatbed Scanning
Our large-format scanning capabilities are the ideal solution to accommodate 2D artwork of almost any size. From intimate sketches to substantial paintings, textiles, and highly textured mixed media, we can capture it all. Our scanner utilizes a special 3D light capture technology, rendering even the most subtle textures with stunning dimensionality. The resulting high-resolution files offer nearly infinite reproduction potential.
Please contact us with your project specifics, and we will outline the possibilities.
Wide Gamut RGB Files for Maximum Flexibility
Every scan is rendered into a wide-gamut RGB color space, capturing the fullest spectrum of printable colors. We provide you with a full-resolution, 48-bit TIFF master file. Depending on your project needs—from commercial CMYK printing to web-ready sRGB images—we can expertly convert your files to ensure optimal results across all media.
Handling Your Art with the Utmost Care
We are artists and technicians who understand the profound value of your original work. Every piece is handled with white-glove care and expertise in our secure studio. For fragile or delicate pieces, we encourage a pre-scan consultation to ensure the safest and most effective digitization method. We will also review any works with challenging surfaces, such as heavy varnish or metallic inks, to proactively address potential reflections.
Partnered Drum Scanning for Unrivaled Film Quality
For film formats demanding the absolute pinnacle of quality, we offer drum scanning services through our trusted partnership with Drum Scanning NYC.
Drum scanning represents the gold standard, delivering unmatched dynamic range, breathtaking resolution, and silky-smooth tonality. The PMT (PhotoMultiplier Tube) sensor in a drum scanner is a more sensitive instrument than the CCDs found in even the best cameras, capturing profound shadow detail and color accuracy without noise. Its precision aperture controls allow for natural grain reproduction with exceptional sharpness.
The process involves mounting the film on a clear cylinder with a harmless, archival-quality oil. This technique not only enhances shadow and highlight detail but also effectively neutralizes dust and minimizes the appearance of scratches and surface imperfections, often saving significant time and cost in post-production retouching.
Drum Scanning NYC can service any film format at up to 8000 PPI resolution, in 16-bit grayscale or 48-bit color, including:
- 35mm
- All 120 / 220 medium formats (645, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, etc.)
- Large format sheet film (4x5, 5x7, 8x10)
- Color negatives, chromes, transparencies, and black & white film
- Polaroids and photographic prints up to 11" x 11.8"