|
Digital
Imaging - Computers
by
Gordon Beddis
Reproduced
from in focus 63 (Oct.
1998)
See
also: SCANNERS
& PRINTERS : FINE
TUNING : GETTING TO GRIPS
by Gordon Beddis
and
DIGITAL
SLIDE SCANNERS & SCANNING by Brian Pitkin
A
few months ago I would have advised people not to embark into
digital imaging: to save their money for a diving holiday
or buy that new housing. My views have now changed, partly
due to my own success in digital printing and partly to the
march of technology. This article will, I hope, guide you
in the right direction ....
Sounds
obvious, but you will need a P.C., if you have one already
there's a good chance that it will be of little use, unless
it was bought in the last year or so, and then it might need
some expensive up-grade.
The
parts (hardware) that the PC is built from makes all the difference
and not how nice it looks in the shop, I will try to explain.
The
MOTHERBOARD: the heart of any PC. Most are for Intel's PII
processing chip, 30OMhz being the current standard. Boards
come in two types: single slot and dual slot. Dual slot boards
can take two chips of the same speed (Mhz), but will run with
one until you can afford a second one.
RAM:
motherboards will either have two or three slots for memory.
Modern applications are memory-hungry, so don't muck about!
Get one 128mb chip to start and add more of the same.
GRAPHIC
CARD/VIDEO CARD is the item that holds your images on the
screen. The key factor in choosing a card is the on-board
memory the card has available; 4mb is OK, 8mb is desirable,
12mb is the tops. Dedicated graphics cards not games cards
are required.
HARD
DISCS - this is a permanent or semi-permanent storage device
for your precious program applications and photo information.
Get the biggest you can afford: 66b is the very minimum. Sounds
a lot but take it from me, you will need it: bigger is best!
FLOPPY
DISC DRIVES and CD ROMS are all pretty standardised equipment
- most makes will suit.
Sound
cards are not necessary, but useful for playing your music
CDs while you are waiting for the printer to print your images.
You
will need a back-up storage device for those all so-valuable
images. If you con afford it, I recommend two types:
A
SPAPQ made by Syquest is a removable 16b hard-drive; spare
discs are relatively cheap and the internal model of drive
has a fast data transfer rate. Handy for storing many images
that are being worked, manipulated or just waiting to be printed.
A
CD-ROM WRITER is a good bet for storing images in a permanent
form, e.g., for photo libraries, back-up purposes and if your
hard drive goes down, CAPUT, you'll still have your images
safe. Nothing is ever easy. There are two types of CDROM writer.
One is a standard called IDE and the other is SCSI. The SCSI
is faster, but needs a separate SCSI card. Seeing as you'll
need a card for the Scanner, get a good card that will take
many SCSI devices.
PHEW!
I do Computer Support for a living and it does get technical.
But I'm a diver and photographic technician at heart. More
next time .......
Contact:
Gordon Beddis, SeaScenes Scuba, 01 202 535051.
See
also: SCANNERS
& PRINTERS : FINE
TUNING : GETTING TO GRIPS
by Gordon Beddis
and
DIGITAL
SLIDE SCANNERS & SCANNING by Brian Pitkin |
