V700-resolution?

[Brad Bireley]

I'm new to this scanning thing. This might be a stupid question, but what resoultion should I use when scanning medium format negs? I tried the highest setting & I got an over 300 meg file!

Thanks in advance,
Brad

 

[Brad Bireley]

Let me put my question another way.....What size resolution matches with what size of prints you want to print? Are there any standards?

Thanks,
Brad

 

[PaulDalex]

Hi
My opinion is that the question is ill-posed. First some premises. I scan 35 mm on a film scanner and use flatbed only for MF (I have a 4870). Now my advice: simply scan at the maximum possible resolution. Our damned hardware decides that beyond 3200 you get an error (I have 4GB RAM). Once you have the best possible image, you can always decide whatever size you want to print in Photoshop. But please remember: downsampling (it is always my case) will do less harm that upsampling according to the law: Garbage in cubed garbage out. In other word with high resolution you can cover any print size in future. With low res you will evenctually resample larger and degrade the image. Thus there is no direct connection IMO with print size. Only aim at image quality.
Pistach

 

[anselwannab]

Or you can do a high/low approach. Disk space is relatively cheap, but the time spent scanning at high resolution is expensive. I either scan stuff high, or just do a screen quality jpeg.

THe worst thing to do is a mid-level scan that won't print big, but takes time and is over kill for posting on the web. Plus if you then go back and scan it big, you have to do all the manipulations again.

I am interested what people say is the max resolution of the V700.

Mark

 

[Ben Z]

There's usually separate input and output resolution settings in scanner software. I keep the input resolution set at the highest. In Vuescan (the software I use with both my scanners) the input setting is set to "Archive" which defaults to the scanner's maximum. That way I have maximum detail for possible cropping. I save TIFF files, which because they are uncompressed are rather large, but are lossless and best suited for editing. I don't set the printed size in the scan, that's done in CS2 just before printing. The final saved-for-print file can be smaller than the original scanned file. Still, if I was working with a large volume of files at a time I would need more RAM and storage than I have now.

I'm not sure and have never tried to calculate the maximum actual resolution of the V700, but it's more than adequate for the largest prints my home printer can make from my Rollei negs and the dMax isn't bad. I've made some scans on a friend's Nikon LS9000 and at the print sizes I'm interested in there was very, very little difference. If I ever have the need for a really large print I'll just send it off for a drum scan. My 35mm-only 4000dpi scanner and the V700 together cost me less than half of an LS9000.