Center for Advanced Imaging

The Center for Advanced Imaging is dedicated to public education in digital photography, general digital imaging,digital graphic design, inkjet printing including large format printing, and related graphic arts. The Center for Advanced Imaging is associated with the art department of the Meramec Campus, St. Louis Community College, Saint Louis, Missouri.

It is rare that the State legislature recognizes the need to properly fund training in digital imaging in their state. Thus most community colleges or universities simply do not have adequate equipment. For example, even leading programs in digital imaging do not have a large format digital scanning back (such as Better Light, PhaseOne or Dicomed). How many college art departments have a Fuji Pictography digital photo printer? and especially one at tabloid size? How many universities have a scanner as good as an Imacon? Indeed most community colleges and the majority of universities have only cheap HP or Epson flatbed scanners with no professional prepress scanners anywhere on campus. How many colleges have a wide format printer anywhere on campus? How many of these have two Hewlett Packard wide format printers in their art department?

John Nagel and his wife, digitally transformed (the face of the wife merged with the hair of the husband; John's fare merged digitally with that of his wife)	Since this is a snapshot or a print of a composite photograph, then JPEGed for the Internet, you need to see the original to note that the HP printer has successfully rendered the fine detail of the hair	Printed at the Center for Advanced Imaging on a Hewlett-Packard 2500 CP at 600 dpi.

Thus the State legislature of Missouri deserves commendation for their foresight in funding adequate professional equipment which has made the St. Louis Community College the leading center for public instruction in digital imaging in the Midwest. Indeed this Missouri college has a better program than many universities and most community colleges on the East Coast or even in California. The current director is photography professor John Nagel. He had the foresight to select the best digital imaging equipment right from the start, for example, a BetterLight scanning back instead of the PhaseOne.

The Center for Digital Imaging also selected the Fuji Pictography for their main digital photo printer, rather than a normal dye sub printer. This Fuji is considered the Rolls Royce of digital photo printers.

Professor Nagel is an accomplished photographer in a traditional sense yet has gone beyond legacy darkroom photography to bravely enter the world of digital photography. Here is one of his designs, printed on a Hewlett-Packard 2500CP large format printer. Nagel pointed out the capability of this HP printer to render the individual strands of his wife's hair. Since FLAAR has its USA receiving address in St. Louis, it is only natural that Dr. Hellmuth would share resources with the leading digital imaging educational center in the Midwest. Although we do most of our test and evaluations of digital imaging equipment in Germany or at the main University in Guatemala (where we have the most space for digital imaging equipment), when we test hardware and software in the USA, we tend to do it through the facilities of the Center for Digital Imaging.