1986–1990 LaserSoft Imaging was founded in Spring 1986 by the physicist Karl-Heinz Zahorsky, the president of the company today. LaserSoft Imaging became an early adopter of
color- and image processing on the
Macintosh. It was the first company to distribute video digitizers, such as Pixelogic's 'ProViz' and Truvel's 'TrueScan', the first professional color scanner for the
Macintosh, which was first shown at
Hannover trade fair
CeBIT in 1988, to which LaserSoft Imaging was invited by
Apple Computer.
1990–2000 In 1991 LaserSoft Imaging became a registered
GmbH and moved into a large
Prepress house to help in setting up color reproduction on the desktop and to link Chromacom systems to
Macintosh Computers. With RipLink LaserSoft Imaging presented a system to link major
prepress systems, like Hell, Scitex and Crosfield to
Macintosh. The distribution of leafscanners started the chapter of high-end scanners on the desktop. LaserSoft Imaging consulted Leaf,
Canon,
Sony,
Seiko and others regarding desktop high end color. LaserSoft Imaging also was involved in the development of the Photone
Prepress, after the product had gone through its infant stages. In 1994 LaserSoft Imaging started the development of
SilverFast, which was first presented in its early stages at
CeBIT 1995. Version 2.0 was demonstrated at
CeBIT 1996, version 3.0 was released in December 1996, version 4.0 in 1998. The second office opened in
Sarasota,
Florida in 1997.
2000–2010 LaserSoft Imaging released
SilverFast versions 5.0 in 2000, 6.0 in 2002, 6.5 in 2006, 6.6 in 2008, and 9 in 2020. LaserSoft Imaging changed the company into a
public corporation (
Aktiengesellschaft) in 2001; the founder is the sole shareholder. Today, LaserSoft Imaging has implemented scan software for over 300 scanners for
Mac OS 9,
Mac OS X and
Microsoft Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista. In the beginning LaserSoft Imaging's software was mainly distributed in
Germany, but now,
SilverFast is distributed globally through distributors as well as world-wide bundle agreements with manufacturers such as
Canon,
HP,
Seiko Epson, Cruse,
Leica Camera AG,
Microtek,
Nikon, Pacific Image Electronics,
Pentacon GmbH, PFU/Quato, Plustek,
Samsung, and
Umax. The company supports high-end scanners such as the
Heidelberg (
Linotype) Topaz, Tango, Nexscan, and Chromagraph (3300 and 3400). LaserSoft Imaging's SilverFast was awarded "best color management software of the year 2008" by the European Digital Press Association (EDP).
2019-Present In 2019, Lasersoft Imaging's Advanced IT8 Target which conforms to ISO 12641-2:2019 (Part 2: Advanced colour targets for input scanner calibration) specification, was successfully certified through
Fogra Research Institute for Media Technologies eV. == Products ==