Large scan of 35mm negative

Craigus

Craigus

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Craig
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Hopefully some of you will be able to advise or maybe educate me on this.

I have had another roll of film developed by filmdev (cracking service again). As I only sent the one roll I chose the medium scan option as it is a £5 minimum order. The tiff files that come back are around 17mb and 2988 x 1972 which is plenty enough generally. In this roll I have a couple of shots that are really great - nothing of great artistic merit but family shots. I would like to possibly get these scanned larger, will I be able to get more resolution out of them? Is there somewhere that will just scan a couple of negatives?

They aren't close up portraits else the size I have would be more than enough, the below is one my wife took, whilst not bang in focus it isn't bad and a larger file may help. Will I actually gain anything from doing this?

R1-04467-0020.jpg
 
Resolution etc is not something that I am fully up on, however I have some very good quality A4 prints that I obtained from file sizes less than 400Ko and less than 200 dpi.!!

I don't get this bigger file, higher resolution bumph.....it's like megapixels on dslrs.....they do not mean that the image is forced to be any better
 
Asha said:
I don't get this bigger file, higher resolution bumph
Click to expand...

Only useful if say going over A4 or cropping as less pixels show up on screen or in print but a good scanner is handy for showing better detail......I've proved to myself that a low Asda scan (they use a £20,000 scanner for detail) can produce a good\decent A4 print.
 
Yes this pic would be fine if I were printing a 5x7. If I were to crop it though I'd need some more pixels.

This is basically my question, will a larger scan give me more 'usable' pixels with more detail?
 
Craigus said:
This is basically my question, will a larger scan give me more 'usable' pixels with more detail?
Click to expand...

The detail depends on the quality of the scanner (also gets into the shadow areas better), but more pixels in the scan allows you to enlarge more esp cropping... nearly all my shots I post are Asda scans which are low 1800 X 1200px, if you frame the initial shot well you don't have to crop later..anyway they are good enough for posting here and seen on the screen reduced 1000 X 828 px...h'mm which is equivalent of a 1.8mp digi camera (that should give the digi guys a laugh). o_O
 
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I guess it also depends on the lens quality / focussing. A larger-resolution scan will result in less pixelisation the more you enlarge it when compared with a lower resolution image, but unless the focussing is pin-sharp you'll end up with soft images anyway because the camera never captured the finer detail in the first place.
 
Craigus said:
Yes this pic would be fine if I were printing a 5x7. If I were to crop it though I'd need some more pixels.

This is basically my question, will a larger scan give me more 'usable' pixels with more detail?
Click to expand...
Perhaps you would need more pixels but there again perhaps you wouldn't

This is my whole point about the prints I mentioned that had come from dpi less than 200 ( I think the original scans had been done at 1200 resolution

Computer screen images do not resemble very wll what comes out on paper.
If I was to avoid printing anything that didn't look to have sufficient res / pixels on screen then I would have very few prints.

Pixel peeping is like GAS.....there is no cure!:D
 
Thanks for the replies, I think I've got my answer. Does anyone know where I could get some large scans done? I think I'll have to try it and see if they are more usable for my purposes.
 
FishyFish said:
I guess it also depends on the lens quality / focussing. A larger-resolution scan will result in less pixelisation the more you enlarge it when compared with a lower resolution image, but unless the focussing is pin-sharp you'll end up with soft images anyway because the camera never captured the finer detail in the first place.
Click to expand...

Yes a VG lens is important for many....I throw away any lens that is not sharp as if I wanted a blurry photo I can always use a filter. A good lens and decent scanner and high scan can still produce VG results from 35mm as shown in the link (click on the shot to enlarge) ....now I would say this would give a good 16 X 12 print https://www.flickr.com/photos/31831722@N08/30403237883/in/dateposted-public/
Just think if a lab had scanned this neg with a top scanner... I used a Epson V750
 
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Asha said:
Perhaps you would need more pixels but there again perhaps you wouldn't

This is my whole point about the prints I mentioned that had come from dpi less than 200 ( I think the original scans had been done at 1200 resolution

Computer screen images do not resemble very wll what comes out on paper.
If I was to avoid printing anything that didn't look to have sufficient res / pixels on screen then I would have very few prints.

Pixel peeping is like GAS.....there is no cure!:D
Click to expand...

Also many people don't look at a large print from the correct viewing distance ;)
 
I had a word with the guys in my company's retouching studio (and they scan for some household-name photographers).

They reckon with their drum scanner and a properly exposed, good quality 35mm frame, it can be pushed to around 5000dpi, which gets you IRO a 7100 x 4700 pixels file, or about 33 Mpx in digital terms. Any further than that and you're just scanning grain. If the source material is poorer it may not be worth pushing that far.
 
That comes out at about the same degree of magnification as a 20x16" print from 35mm*. I know that a lot of people do/used to produce prints of this size, but in my experience with my camera(s) and working methods it was pushing it too far - 10x8 was the maximum I ever got to and was happy with the result. But then, I'm very slap dash.

A better scanner can resolve more detail - if it's there to resolve. On the other hand, more pixels will give you a little more leeway with sharpening afterwards.

* My reasoning went:

to produce a 20x16 print from 35mm requires about 16 times enlargement
to produce an inkjet print requires 300 dpi (this is the conventionally accepted (and incorrect) limit of our eyes' ability to resolve detail)
therefore we need 16x300 pixels = 4800 on the short side from 35mm
 
@Craigus you can probably get a bit more useful resolution, but if as in that example it's a bit soft anyway then I don't think an expensive drum scan would be worth the cost. Tim Parkin is said to be "affordable", see http://www.drumscanning.co.uk/prices/ but it works out at £14 per frame for colour negatives at 6,000 dpi!

You didn't mention what film it is.

Bearing in mind that I normally send my colour films to Filmdev for process and scan precisely because getting colour right is hard, I'd be happy to scan a few frames for you for nowt at, say, 3600 dpi on a Plustek 7500i. At that nominal resolution you might be getting a little more actual detail than the Filmdev 2000 dpi scans (consumer grade scanners don't reach their nominal resolutions, generally, see reviews on ScanDigs at http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html . PM me if interested...
 
Well I'm gonna chuck science out the window a suggest that I think it unlikely that anything very useful could be gleamed from such a small portrait of figures on an already small 35mm frame.
peeps can quote dpi and ppi rates till their blue in the face, the bottom line in this case is the size of the fraction of film used to record the subject..:)
 
I've been looking at scanning and "what size do I need". As a test, I printed out a screenshot at A3 size (printed area 15.5" x 9") from a 2560x1440 monitor and it is acceptably sharp with my eyes at a viewing distance of around 3 feet. This was at 163dpi.

Ideally for a "super sharp" A3 print, I'd want 4800x3600, but considering viewing distance, you can get away with significantly lower than that.
If you want a bigger file so you can print big, I'm happy to run off a test print at A3 size and post it on. It'll be on proofing paper, so no good for display but good enough to get an idea of quality and whether you need bigger. I'll also have to fold it to get it in an A5 envelope, unless you live nearby (North West) in which case you can come get it...
 
What I would like to know is:- what you see on your monitor will be the same in print when going over A4 OR if not is there a relationship between monitor and print e.g. if your shot on the monitor is 3ft wide and looking great would that mean a print 3ft wide would look great as well.
I've assumed but never proved that if a shot 3 ft wide looks VG on the monitor then it would look VG in print at 18" wide a guessing factor of 50% reduction.
 
excalibur2 said:
if your shot on the monitor is 3ft wide and looking great would that mean a print 3ft wide would look great as well.
Click to expand...

No.

Ignore the physical size of any electronic viewing device. My TV is 38" but has 1024x768 resolution. My iPhone 6s has a 4.5" screen and has almost the same (slightly better) 1334x750 resolution. My monitor is 24" and has 2560x1440 resolution. It's all about resolution - how many pixels/dots are crammed into the physical space. What you see on your monitor has often been resized to fit it - either by the browser, or whatever application displays it. A 1000px image would look great on my TV (at three feet-ish wide) but only fill up half my monitor (about a foot wide).

Hope that explains it. The best way to see if your image will print out well is to look at its resolution and divide (the longest edge) by the size (in inches) of the paper you want to print on. then use a rule of thumb to determine whether that's good enough for your viewing distance... 300dpi for up close, 115 for "on the wall", 50 for across the room.
This excludes fine art/competiion printing as close examination is always done no matter how large the print. 300 would be my minimum, maybe up to 720 which is my printer maximum.

The OP's example was 2988x1972 which on A4 (11x8") would result in 246dpi and would look fine (to my old eyes) even under close scrutiny. However at A3 (16x11") it would be 180dpi which would actually probably be fine on the wall, but might not bear up to close scrutiny. My eyes are pretty bad though, so I would be unlikely to tell the difference.

OK. Ended up writing far more than was probably needed there... Soz...
 
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