The Ray in the source picture is a good, sharp image but is spoilt by the diver on the left of the frame,

The same image now makes a clean, exciting photograph.

Before you buy, it is essential to test film recorder (or printer) performance. The best way to do this is to digitally create a 32-megabyte image with alternating black and white lines that are 1, 2, 3..., up to 10 pixels wide. Include horizontal and vertical lines as well as coloured lines in the image sent to the film recorder. When examining the resulting slide, you will find that the alternating black and white lines that are 1, 2, 3..., sometimes up to 6 pixels wide, blend together to produce a uniform grey colour, and only lines several pixels wide begin to show separate black and white colours. Including red and green lines in the test image is also helpful since the combined colour is yellow, which is easily seen in the test slide.

Colour printers perform much better on this functional resolution test and many produce discernible one-pixel-wide lines. Software is a must. There are many programs available, including Photo Styler, CorelDraw, Live Picture, Image Wizard and Elastic Reality, to mention only a few. The PaintBrush program, which comes with Windows on the PC, also has limited photo-editing abilities. Photoshop by Adobe is the most popular professional choice and is Apple and PC-compatible. Manipulating an image digitally can cause problems. To overcome most of them, use the highest resolution input and output devices that are feasible. Of course, these may come at a substantial price.

Work with or select images that are bold, such as close-ups or shots of large objects that do not depend on a lot of fine detail. And use a digital filter, available in most imaging software programs, which is called an 'unsharp mask'. This gives the image the appearance of having a sharper focus and the effects can be dramatic. Be careful, though: if a too extensive unsharp mask is applied, the image can appear grainy. Another fact to keep in mind is that, to get the best results, it is important to start with an image in sharp focus that is worth keeping. Do not expect to improve greatly on a poor-quality image.

SHOPPING LIST (pls check with yr local dealer)

FILM SCANNER Nikon CoolScan £1,000 Nikon LS04500 AF £5,890
COMPUTER IBM PC-compatible or Macintosh - includes 1-gigabyte hard disk, 128-megabytes RAM, 4-megabytes video RAM, 17-inch colour monitor, 200-megahertz CPU, and CD-Rom drive PC-compatible clone with Pentium CPU £2,500 or Power Mac 9500 £5,999 4K
FILM RECORDER Lasergraphics LFR Plus or Mirus Turbo 2e £5,000 or Polaroid HR 6000 £5,000
SOFTWARE PhotoShop by Adobe £620
Several of these prices are from discount suppliers. By shopping for the best prices, it may be possible to find better value.