What is the ideal resolution for scanning negatives?

Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:34 pm

Hi
With the recent purchase of my own negative scanner I have encountered some hiccups with photoshop. My scanner ranges from 8 bit grey scale to 48 bit color and 36 dpi to 12,000+ dpi. I was scanning at 48 bit with 4800 dpi and it was crashing photoshop.

So, I checked what some of the stores I had used were scanning at and found out they'd change ideal size to roughly 30" and scan at 72dpi. While this works well with Photoshop it doesn't seem optimal. I am not printing from these scans - merely using them as contacts.

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

Rob

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:49 pm

You say you are only using them for contacts - do you mean printing them a bunch on a page (like 30) at 1"x1" in size? Or do you mean online contacts / proofs (like 800x600 type web resolution) ?

I have a Minolta Scan Dual II that does 2820 dpi, I use it for scanning my 35mm b/w negs. At full resolution (and I don't know what bit depth - maybe 24) I get scans that approximate a 10 MP camera file. The images are about 25 MB as a tiff. I use these for printing as I don't do wet darkroom printing.

If you only need small files, try one of the lower settings and see. It really comes down to what you need it for. A smaller / lower setting will speed up the scanning process considerably.

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:07 pm

Thanks for the info

I'm just using them as web based contacts. If they were to print they would be small so super high quality isn't of a concern. I guess I'm looking for the highest resolution that Pshop can process. 4800 DPI was crashing it... Maybe I'll ty some at lower res. and see how it goes.

Rob

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:28 pm

4800 was crashing ps.. doesnt sound right are you sure it isnt your system? personally i would scan at the maximum resolution you can get it will save you time in the long run. not to mention you can always resize your files for the web later after youve edited them.