Computerized digital photography in auditory research: a comparison of publication-quality digital printers with traditional darkroom methods

Digital photography is the rapidly developing field of computer processing of images generated either directly from a digital camer or from scanned conventional film. Subsequent photographs output from digital color printers are publication-quality and superior to conventional darkroom prints because of greater image control (exposure, contrast, color correction). Because final print quality is the most critical factor in the research application of digital photography, we evaluated the photographic output of several continuous-tone digital printers. Digital images from selected microscopic sections of the middle and inner ear were generated by scanning black and white film and Ektachrome color transparencies and sent to commercial representatives for printing. Photographs from some printers were as good or better than traditional darkroom prints of the same film when evaluated for resolution, image qquality, and costs. It is our hope that the hearing research field will benefit enormously by adoption of chemical-free digital photography because of its quality, convenience, speed, and low cost.