Tone reproduction of photographic scanners

The aims of this study were to analyze the tone reproduction of photographic scanners and to develop simple test procedures. The most important arguments proposed are the image noise, image resolution, sensitivity of the scanner, and the visual aspect of the images. A good scanner should show an image noise lower than +/- 0.03 to 0.05 D for a pixel size of 10 mu m and a resolution up to 10 mu m. Furthermore, the dynamic density range and the fidelity of tone reproduction should be controlled The study includes tests of the scanners most commonly used in photogrammetry and in the printing industry, but shows that their efficiency does not allow them to fully exploit the high image quality of modern aerial photographs.