Yet Another Scanning Thread

[Burkey]

After too many years shooting digital only I decided to also look again towards film. Did a Voigtlander/Nokton purchase with Mr. Gandy and am loving the results. I'm shooting XP2 right now but will be trying Kodak Portra in a bit. An important piece of imformation - darkroom work is not an option for a number of reasons. That said, I've had extremely good luck thus far scanning negatives with an Canon 8400F and printing to an Epson 2200. Background done, now the question. . .
Which do folks here feel is better, simply scanning at the highest res and let the size stay with the physical size of the negative OR scanning at a lower res and preestablish a finished print size. Doing both together seems to give very large and completely unmanagable file sizes but I'm curious what forum members are using for settings.
I did an number of searches here and got some valuable information but this question still seems in need of focused discussion.
BTW, this is a great site.

 

[cathy_w_J]

i used to work in the design department of a publisher and we always scanned with the final size in mind. of course, we had alot of time constraints so there wasn't time to fiddle with alot of stuff.

 

[kiev4a]

I usually scan at the highest practical dpi (usually 3800) at 100 percent, then change the scanned file to the size I want to print at 300 dpi (graphic arts standard--anything above that is overkill).

 

[dcsang]

I'm like Wayne.
I scan at highest res (2820 dpi) and then downsize to print at 300 dpi and if I want to go "larger" (i.e. 11x14) I'll even go to 275/250 dpi since I know the lab results will be indistinguishable from 300 dpi.

Cheers
Dave

 

[jlw]

If you want the best image quality, scan at your scanner's maximum optical resolution, and then downsample to the optimum resolution for your printer at print time.

This way, if you later decide you want to make a larger print, you don't have to invest additional time in re-scanning and redoing all your correction and retouching.

There's a time penalty in scanning at max resolution, though, so for non-critical small prints I often just set the scanner software to the desired print size and let it sort things out.

 

[Kin Lau]

I only have a Minolta Dual Scan that scans at 2820 dpi for 35mm and a flatbed Mustek for MF & LF that's rated for 2400dpi.

For 35mm, I just scan at full res all the time, but into JPG, not TIFF unless there a lot of PS work to do. On the flatbed, it's usually only at 1200dpi, since that seems to be more the "real resolution". There's is more detail at 2400, but not that much more on this particular scanner so it's not worth it to scan at that resolution.

So for me, full res is very manageable, and most of my scans are 35mm b&w, not colour and work well on my P4 w/ 512megs. 16bit colour at 3200 or 5400 dpi is about 4 to 16 times more info/larger and much harder to manage.

Do some tests for yourself, as to whether the full rez on the 8400F is really the "real resolution". If you can't see the difference (or very little diff) btwn full rez and 1/2 rez, then you have your answer.

 

[Burkey]

Thanks for all the replies. So it sounds like scanning at max res on the 8400 and leaving the "flexible" selected, as far as end print size is concerned, may be a good starting point. Again I appreciate the replies. Off-thread as it may be, the R3a and the Nokton 40/1.4 appear to be working well for me, even though I too wear glasses.

 

[dmr]

I'm a relative newbee on film scanning, but what I do is usually scan at max res, max depth, and then downsize to 300dpi when I get all of the Photoshopping done.

 

[Ukko Heikkinen]

1. Maximum optical resolution.

2. The DPI depends on your printer, use 360 if you have an Epson desktop. Please see

"Best inpur resolution for Epson printers"
http://www.inkjetart.com/news/archive/IJN_09-27-05.htm

3. Resample up or down. I use the Lanczos algorithm. Please see

http://www.outdoorgrace.com/ResizeIT.htm

Ukko Heikkinen

 

[Nikon Bob]

Using a Minolta 5400 I scan at max rez and on the final scan select an output of 300 dpi in 16x24 inch size (almost the complete frame) saved as a TIFF file. If I want different dimensions I will resize in PS 2.0. I copy the original file, work it in PS and save it. To clear up space on the hard drive I burn both the original and worked copy to a CD/DVD. Scan once and size down is preferable to upsizing or rescanning if needed.

Bob

 

[Stephanie Brim]

3. Resample up or down. I use the Lanczos algorithm. Please see

http://www.outdoorgrace.com/ResizeIT.htm

<offtopic>
Someone needs to offer to redo that website in such a way that it's actually usable. Using Firefox on my Mac, the site content is all in one place: the very top of the page. Bad.
</offtopic>

 

[Jason Sprenger]

Being largely a duffer, most of my shots aren't keepers. I also find that scanning everything at full resolution is too slow. My scanner is an obselete Canon FS4000; I think it's good, but 4000 dpi takes a while. Consequently, I do a preview scan effectively creating a digital contact sheet.

Using VueScan, the preview scans about 1/4 the size of a full scan. Enough to see if I hit what I was composing for and to see if didn't totally screw up the exposure and focus. The smaller scans are also handy for downsizing into 600x400 for email sharing and web posting. VueScan makes either a TIFF and/or JPEG. If you use JPEG's for preview scans, Win XP will display them as thumbnails. Though I'm thinking of just doing TIFF files and letting Photoshop make a contact sheet. That way, I could print it out and store it with the negatives. (Still figuring out that part of my workflow.)

When I find the rare good ones, I scan them again at full resolution and save them. Then I'll manipulate the image in Photoshop for levels, sharpness, etc, saving this off separately from the initial scan. This is so that if my technique gets better, I don't have to go back to square one. Only then will I downsize to the print size that I want, figuring on 250 to 300 dpi.

To me, doing big scans of everything is a waste of time when I have the negative already sitting in a sleeve. I might feel different if my scanner were faster.

 

[RJBender]

Thanks for all the replies. So it sounds like scanning at max res on the 8400 and leaving the "flexible" selected, as far as end print size is concerned, may be a good starting point. Again I appreciate the replies. Off-thread as it may be, the R3a and the Nokton 40/1.4 appear to be working well for me, even though I too wear glasses.

Burkey, use the maximum optical resolution 3200 X 6400 not the maximum interpolated resolution (19200 X 19200). Interpolation just invents new pixels. Save your scans as PSD or TIF files. Convert to JPG later if you need a JPG. Use an external hard drive to back up your scans or burn to DVDs.

R.J.

 

[Burkey]

An incredible number of replies. Thanks again. I really appreciate the positive "how to" natural of the responses too. As much as I really have had very good luck with my D2, I still like "that film look" as an option.

 

[DougK]

Most of my scans are for the web only so I usually just scan at 1200 dpi and save as a PSD file, edit, save, and then resize and save as JPEG to a different file. I haven't noticed a lot of benefit on my scanner (Epson 2580 Photo) by going to higher resolutions even though it's theoretically capable of much higher, 9600 dpi physical I believe; I'd have to look at the specs to be sure. I haven't tried scanning for a print yet but I suspect I will need a dedicated film scanner to get the quality needed.

 

[dmr]

<offtopic>
Someone needs to offer to redo that website in such a way that it's actually usable. Using Firefox on my Mac, the site content is all in one place: the very top of the page. Bad.
</offtopic>

It isn't just you. Firefox on a PC Laptop looks totally 144!

I don't think I'm gonna buy graphic software from somebody who has web page like that. 🙁