“Spitting Image’s caricature puppets were originally photographed on film, which were then used for print and publicity purposes. Obtaining really good prints from transparencies was always problematic.
In 2014 I commissioned Professional Drum Scanning to scan the very best images of the puppets for the 30th Anniversary exhibition Spitting Image From Start to Finish at The Cartoon Museum, London.
Professional Drum Scanning’s skills and expertise magically brought the puppets of the 1980s and ‘90s back to life and introduced them to a new generation.
The quality of the work inspired me to commission them to scan the best images for the Spitting Image Archive” Roger Law, Spitting Image Productions Ltd.
This job consisted of a mix of 35mm, medium format, 5×4 and 10×8 work. The medium format transparencies in particular were taken with very sharp Hasselblad equipment and we produced 5000dpi scans that contained detail at the pixel level but retained all of the shadow and highlight detail. Below you can see a sample 5×4 image taken on old Kodak Safety Film (the origins of Ektachrome I believe) with a 100% sample of a 2000dpi scan. The first photograph in this post shows our Heidelberg Primescan 8400 with a brand new drum mounted with six 5×4 transparencies.
Here’s another example showing a ‘behind the scenes’ view of the Spitting Image studio. This 35mm slide was scanned at 5000dpi.
