More info from Jeff Glickman:
He had wondered whether the print he is working with is from a negative or a scan. I replied, "We got that print from the Miami Herald in 1996 or earlier - before the days of scanning." He corrected me.
"Ric,
Scanning was first developed and used in the late 1800’s in conjunction with telegraph lines to transmit images. The modern high-resolution drum scanner was first developed in the late 1950’s. High-resolution laser-based drum scanners and printers were in use in the 1990’s, often by news organizations, to manage photographic content. Drum scanners have been manufactured by several companies including Heidelberg, a primary supplier to the print and news industries. While they have reached resolutions of 25,000 DPI+, drum scanners were more commonly built in the low-thousand DPI region.
The rear of the Miami Herald print bears the labeling “Kodak Electronic Imaging Paper”. Kodak entered the electronic imaging market in 1987. There was a series of Kodak printers that were compatible with this paper, including dye-sublimation printers. For example, the Kodak XL-7700 dye-sublimation printer was introduced in 1989. I located the manual for the Kodak XL-7720 dye-sublimation printer and its resolution was 203 DPI, a standard dye-sublimation printer resolution for the era. Other standard dye-sublimation resolutions included 314, 320, 480, 540, 720 and 1,440 DPI. Measurement of the frequency of the raster band artifact that is observed on the Miami Herald photo at 6,400 DPI optical resolution shows a rate of 20:1, suggesting that the resolution of the imaging system was 6,400 DPI / 20 = 320 DPI, which is consistent with a known resolution for dye-sublimation printing."
He later added:
"The banding seen in the Miami Herald photographic print on “Kodak Electronic Imaging Paper” is consistent with dye-sublimation printing. What I can now reasonably assert is that the Miami Herald photographic print is not a print from a negative: It is probably a print from a dye-sublimation printer that may have been retrieved from a photograph archival system. Whether an original print or negative was used during the storage recording process is currently unclear, nor is the recording method currently known. I anticipate that the band artifacts will slow down, but not prevent, analysis of the image."
