Making large format prints of antiquities for archaeology museums implies selecting inks that provide archival quality

What inks, media, and wide format printer can produce archival longevity at photo realistic quality worthy of exhibiting in a museum?

When you want to print a work of art that has already lasted 1,000 years you certainly want an archival ink with a certified longevity.

Using its three decades of photography experience FLAAR is now well along on its project to create a model digital imaging studio. This model facility is being formed already on the campus of the Universidad Francisco Marroquin. We are negotiating with universities and colleges in the USA to form a comparable facility there.

Although these facilities will continue to test and evaluate digital imaging hardware and software, the main goal of these facilities is to provide guidance for people who seek advice on what to buy when they set up their own studio. Thus marketing and consulting are the key aspects. We have already spent several years searching for the most appropriate scanners, for the best large format printers, the ideal archival inks and appropriate media. Now we will concentrate on showcasing these selected products. FLAAR has purchased the URL of a new site to handle the incoming e-mails from people who want to see and learn about what is best to purchase.

A crucial aspect in all this is showing a real printer in an actual museum environment. Thus the new web site will be dedicated to documenting how selected equipment is user friendly, easy to use, and produces museum-quality fine art printers.

FLAAR is an appropriate entity to arrange such an innovative promotion because we are already situated on a campus with two art museums, the world's largest museum dedicated to indigenous art and weaving (Museo Ixchel) and the most modern museum of pre-Columbian antiquities, the Museo Popol Vuh. FLAAR Director, Dr Nicholas Hellmuth, has been photographing Mayan art in this museum for more than two decades.

In order to insure that people buying the featured printers are totally happy with their choice, we will provide tips and information on how to accomplish better scans. To be blunt, if you start off with a really good scan, then your resultant image will look even better (no matter what printer you select). But since the printer is the item of equipment that produces the final image, most of the credit tends to be given to the printer. This in turn leads to user satisfaction, and considerable favorable word-of-mouth advertising (which goes worldwide in this era of the Internet).

Which is the best large format camera and scan back to photograph works of art?

We thank Calumet Photo/Calumet Digital Solutions, and BetterLight for providing an entire photo studio full of equipment, the heart of the new "dream studio," the best equipment that is available.

printer FLAAR has been testing and evaluating large format printers for the last four years. Now, in autumn 2000, we will select the best of the new generation of printers (more recent than any shown here). We will also select a better, faster RIP.

The selected hardware and software will be presented here after the Seybold San Francisco trade show.

Which RIP, hardware RIP or software RIP?

The system pictured here is under evaluation but is not the selected printer. The recommended printer will be a more recent technology than this model and a newer ink.

Which is the best flatbed scanner?

We like this make and model very much, but we are always on the lookout for a different model that might be more appropriate, perhaps less expensive.

The selection of equipment which will be featured has already begun. During Seybold San Francisco trade show and Photokina 2000 trade show in Cologne, Germany, we will made the final decision on what wide format printer will be prominently featured, what inks, and which media.

Our goal is relatively simple, to demonstrate the capabilities of the newest technology in inks, media, and printers. If the gamut of the inks is good enough to reproduce the image at the left, then thousands of people are going to want that ink, plus the printer this ink works in, and the media which is appropriate for these inks and that printer.

No clip art, no stock photos. The FLAAR Photo Archive selects images that will make the inks, media, and printer look its best, after all, that's what the end-user will want: photo-realistic quality.