Costco Scans

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remegius

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Hi Everyone. I'm curious about something. I have all of my XP2 film processed at Costco and, so far, everything has gone swimmingly. Lately I have taken to having a CD made with scans of the images. The individual scans typically are between 3.5 and 4 MB, are 72 dpi, and formatted as jpegs. I would have thought that at that dpi there would be a problem printing. I use a HP B9180 which likes to scan files that are 300 dpi, and I also print by way of Qimage. The truth of the matter is that I have been able to secure much better prints by starting with the Costco scans than I have by scanning the film myself with my V500 set to 16 bit, 4800 dpi, and saved as tiffs. Does this speak to my bad technique, the limitations of the V500, or both?

Cheers...

Rem
 
From a time-is-money standpoint, Costco scans are quite a good value. I moved to Germany last year and miss them very much. I have a Nikon Coolscan 4000 but vastly prefer getting a Fuji photo CD (2 MB images) with each roll and just rescanning a few images at higher resolution when necessary.
 
Well, I can do this, but not right now, as I have to run to an appointment. However, I have definitely been adjusting via the histogram in both Vuescan, and Photoshop. Both types of images have been adjusted to give the same basic rendering. The problem is not with issues such as light balance, etc, but with the inherit quality of the scanned image.

Cheers...

Rem
 
What is the size of the image when you open it in Photoshop or other editor at 72 dpi?

The reason I ask is that a shot taken from my dslr opened in photoshop shows the image at 72 ppi but size of the image is 48 inches x 32 inches, but at 300 ppi the image size is about 12 x 8.
 
Last edited:
kshapero said:
I have been using Costco scans to CD for quite sometime now. Far superior to any scans from anyone else, including the botch jobs I have done on my own.
Click to expand...

A COSTCO is about to open up in Pensacola. I may switch to it for quick scans.
 
What is the pixel size of the scan? ~1500x1000 or ~3000x2000? More? Less?

The "DPI" does not matter at all in a file. 6000x4000 pixels at 72 DPI and 6000x4000 pixels at 300 DPI looks exactly the same on your computer. The scanner can scan at 4800DPI and save the file at 72DPI and it will not lose quality... if the scanner scans at 72DPI though, then it will be very low quality.

It's also important to note that a flatbed scanner with a claimed resolution of 4800DPI won't actually be able to scan negatives with anywhere near the precision of a dedicated film scanner. A neg scanner will actually be able to capture an image with 4800x4800 pixels (or whatever it is), whereas your flatbed scanner interpolates data and may have, say, 9600x1200 resolution, so you may get a big file but 3/4 of the pixels will be made-up.

I think (think being the key word here) that this is because a flatbed scanner can have a high horizontal resolution (cram pixels in), but because the "scanner" moves, the vertical resolution is limited by the smallest increment it can move by. In this case, 1200 pixel vertical resolution means that the carrier can move in 1/1200 inch increments, or maybe less depending on how many rows there are. Then the software will interpolate this data and give you a file with imaginary pixels. A neg scanner, on the other hand, will have (again, I think) a CCD chip much like a digital SLR that can capture one image at a specific resolution, but that cannot go back and forth and scan a large document.
 
My costco scans are 3087 x 2048, 24-bit, from a Noritsu Koki QS55 with sRGB settings. DPI is just what your particular display is set at. Change it in display settings, and you will see it change in the file properties.

I can only get to the quality of these on my Epson V100 with Epson Scan v3, when I turn on unsharp mask, my Epson scanner neg. holder does not keep the negatives flat during scanning, like a glass or tensioned negative holder would.
 
Bill58 said:
What do you pay for scanning of a roll of B&W 36 @ Costco? It costs me $7.00/ roll here in Korea. Color is $5.00/ roll.
Click to expand...

Here it costs $2.99 a roll. And I just found out that not only will they scan slides ($.29 each), but they will also scan other B/W negatives. If you bring them an uncut roll the cost is the same as for XP2, $2.99. If you bring them cut negatives the cost is the same as slides, $.29 each.

Cheers...

Rem
 
remegius said:
Here it costs $2.99 a roll. And I just found out that not only will they scan slides ($.29 each), but they will also scan other B/W negatives. If you bring them an uncut roll the cost is the same as for XP2, $2.99. If you bring them cut negatives the cost is the same as slides, $.29 each.

Cheers...

Rem
Click to expand...

Remegius:

Given the difference in the cost of living between the two countries, I clearly need to find another place to get my scans done or buy my own scanner. Thanks for the cost comparison. BTW--hand processing here is only $3.00/ roll!

Bill
 
remegius said:
Here it costs $2.99 a roll. And I just found out that not only will they scan slides ($.29 each), but they will also scan other B/W negatives. If you bring them an uncut roll the cost is the same as for XP2, $2.99. If you bring them cut negatives the cost is the same as slides, $.29 each.

Cheers...

Rem
Click to expand...

Rem:

You're a prince of a guy. I just called Costco here and found out they'll do it for $1.50/ roll!

Many thanks,
Bill
 
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