Fratelli Alinari S.p.A. - Kodak's Graphic Communications Group

Fratelli Alinari S.p.A.

Florence, Italy

“We are pleased that since we bought the scanner in 2000, no other scanner has appeared in the market to match the quality and speed of the EverSmart Supreme!“

Andrea de Polo, manager of European Projects and New Technologies Fratelli Alinari S.p.A.

Established 150 years ago in Florence, Italy, and located since 1952 on a street named for the company, Alinari is the world’s oldest photographic archive with over 3.5 million vintage historical and contemporary images, The archive has a Museum of Photography, a gallery, a multimedia office, a fine arts print department and a conservation and restoration office. Alinari has 40 full time and 35 part time employees.

The company’s clients are schools, photographers, web designers, journalists, editors, publishers, research organizations, as well as professional and consumer end users. The company concentrates on the professional business, and educational and consumer markets. “We work with large publishers like Abrams or Mondadori, “ said Andrea de Polo, manager of European Projects and New Technologies. “And we partner with leading worldwide content providers such as Corbis, Roger Violet, RMN, Giraudon, and Mardburg.”

Before becoming an EverSmart user, Alinari was using a mid-range flatbed scanner and sent the slides to a local laboratory for digitization. The results were modest; moreover, the time and risk of loss or damage were high.

“When we decided to buy a high-end scanner, I traveled with my head engineer for a year all over Europe to compare the leading technologies and scanners, “said Mr. De Polo. “In 2000 we chose the EverSmart Supreme scanner for its simple interface, stunning XY [Stitch] results, high scanning productivity, and its incredible industry reputation. We are pleased that since then no other scanner has appeared in the market to match the quality and speed of the EverSmart Supreme! More recently we added an EverSmart Select scanner. We use oXYgen because it’s fast and simple to use and the built-in functions for color correction are much appreciated.”

The images selected from the huge Alinari archive are restored (if needed), captured at 4,000 x 6,000 pixels, and saved as TIFF files. Finally, the files are compared with the original artwork. Since acquiring the EverSmart Supreme, and developing its workflow, Alinari has provided digitizing guidelines in many EC projects. All scanning is now in house, and the company provides top quality scanning services to other third party content providers. Today, the focus in Alinari is online images. Over 25 people are now digitizing and restoring the Alinari database, as well as indexing it in various languages.

“Two of the world’s leading archives, Alinari and Corbis, use the same scanner (EverSmart) and software (oXYgen), which confirms that Alinari made a wise purchase in 2000,“ said Mr. de Polo.

“Doing business has been entirely positive,” added Mr. de Polo. “When we first acquired the EverSmart Supreme we arranged a valuable two-day, in-house workshop. We found the WBT (web-based training) and CBT (computer-based training) CD’s clear and self-explanatory. We are also pleased with our full service agreement. Although we seldom use it, when we need a clarification we get real time help, over the phone or directly at our scanning operation office.”