Images offered in our Digital Stock Library are sourced at the native resolution of the originating device.
This means that the maximum resolution available for any particular imaging process is used to create the images offered, so you can be sure that the highest quality, highest resolution available for any particular image is being delivered to you.
Duke Photography’s Digital Stock Library consists of the following image types:
Legacy Images: These reside primarily as high quality transparencies that are scanned as Tiffs, using a dedicated film scanner at full resolution of 4000ppi. The scanner is continually calibrated for optimum results, and the ICC profile is embedded into the final images, helpful if you use a process that takes advantage of ICC profiles.
Digitally Born Images: These images derive from the high resolution, professional digital cameras used by the staff (We currently use Canon D1 MarkIIn cameras and lenses). Our photographers primarily shoot in “RAW” format, allowing the highest resolution, color fidelity, and highest options for post-production and multi-purposing. Images are captured with the “Adobe RGB (1998)” ICC profile embedded.
After post-processing (toning, cleanups, optimization) of the original images, maximum resolution jpeg’s are created with minimal compression for delivery over the website.
The resulting images available in the Digital Stock Library are full size, RGB, 300ppi Jpegs (Quality 12 in Photoshop CS2).
There is no Unsharp Masking (or any other sharpening algorithm) applied to our stock images, as the amount and type of sharpening to an image is dependant on the final use of the image (ie-150 line screen reproduction in a glossy brochure will need different settings than for web use, etc). A good starting point in Photoshop for sharpening an image used for print might be:
Amount:150
Radius: 0.8
Threshold: 3
It’s a good idea to preview images destined for press/print output at 50% when sharpening, and at 100% when sharpening for digital output, in order to approximate what effect your sharpening is having on an image.
Remember, its easy to have too much sharpening.
After sharpening, always go to Edit/Fade Unsharp Mask…/ and choose Mode: Luminosity. This step will keep your sharpening from creating any additional color artifacts in the image.