Reducing scanned negative/print size

Blasted

Blasted

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I’ve been spending a fair whack of time scanning a pile of assorted negatives and prints. Whilst doing this some of the files have come out at up to 50mb in size, I saved them as TIFF files. These are not super high quality negs or prints, more stuff that was stuffed in a box at my grandma’s house. The purpose of this is to have a nice quality archive of pictures.

I’m going to be doing a little cropping but no major editing as such.

What would be the best way to reduce the file size but not ruin the picture quality any further? What would be an optimum size/resolution?

Negs are a mix of 35mm, 110, 126 and some others.
Prints are no bigger than 7x5 with the exception of the bigger school photographs.

Thanks
 
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I think I'd do all my edits while they were still full-sized TIFFs, and then convert to jpeg at full size. Any info you throw away now will be gone forever, and storage is cheap. (If nothing else, Google will give you 15 gigs of free Drive space, and Flickr will allow you a terrabyte of photos)
 
Well, I scanned all my (2-3,000) old negs and slides as JPEGs and certainly have not regretted that. I've had a couple of lovely prints from them, and with old stuff you've usually a ot more to worry about than the small amount of useful info that JPEGs throw away... things like massive amounts of dust, scratches, creases, damage from where poor quality sleeves have stuck to the negs, and even emulsion decay! I've just checked one of my favourite old slides, scanned at 2400 dpi, it's 2210 * 3304 pixels, and 3.6 MB.

[Edited for clarity]
 
I you're not pulling the image around much in editing or doing large prints then why not scan them as lower resolution JPEG's? That seems the most obvious way to reduce the file size - by not creating a huge one to start with. :)
 
If I'm using lightroom, what is the preffered reduction method? Limit by length in pixels along long edge for example or just limit file size on export. What is a good file size for a 35mm neg scan. I can see me ever blowing them up huge, maybe used in a photo book or something as a full page.


PMN said:
I you're not pulling the image around much in editing or doing large prints then why not scan them as lower resolution JPEG's? That seems the most obvious way to reduce the file size - by not creating a huge one to start with. :)
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Fair point, however I've done them as big TIFFS so as not to compromise the quality in the first place.
 
Blasted said:
Fair point, however I've done them as big TIFFS so as not to compromise the quality in the first place.
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That makes no sense, you either need that level of quality or you don't. You're not using the 'quality' of the resolution you're scanning at so why not reduce it? Remember that a reduction in file size and changing format doesn't automatically equate to a visible reduction in image quality. Unless you're doing significant editing or doing very large prints there's absolutely no benefit to scanning as TIFF at high resolution, just scan carefully at a lower resolution and the results will be absolutely fine.
 
I'm not disagreeing with you at all and in hindsight it would have been the better thing to do. But as it stands I have a bunch of big files that would probably look no different if I reduced them.

A scanned 6x4 photograph at 800dpi and 24 bit colour gives me a 40mb file at 3100x4600
 
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Blasted said:
I'm not disagreeing with you at all and in hindsight it would have been the better thing to do. But as it stands I have a bunch of big files that would probably look no different if I reduced them.

A scanned 6x4 photograph at 800dpi and 24 bit colour gives me a 40mb file at 3100x4600
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OK, there seem to be two things here... in the second part of the quote above, I think you're saying you scanned from a 6*4 print at 800 dpi (and saved the result as a TIFF)?

Scanning a print at that resolution suggests you were interested in printing it at close to 18*12 inches (since most printers are at 300 dpi), and that you wanted top quality. Now I'd suggest that if you had the original negatives for those prints, scanning the negatives (and probably saving them as JPEGs) would probably give a better result than scanning the prints, for many reasons including the increased risk of fading and damage for prints. I'd suggest you only need to scan to JPEGs as you say "These are not super high quality negs or prints, more stuff that was stuffed in a box at my grandma’s house". I scan to JPEGs as a matter of course; only if an image warranted lots of PP treatment and was really valuable to me would I consider scanning to TIFF.

But, if you've already scanned them as large TIFFs, then it's a different problem, as your first para here suggests. The simple answer seems to be to load the TIFFs into some utility and save them as JPEGs, then copy the TIFFs onto a couple of DVDs, store them in different locations, and delete the TIFFs from your computer. If you're on a Mac, GraphicConverter would do it, or GIMP; I would use Aperture. I'd reckon LR would have a way, but I don't know it. You'll still have 3100*4600 pixel images, just as JPEGs rather than TIFFs, and I doubt you wil ever be able to see the difference, given the provenance of the source material.
 
There is a nice free piece of software I use called PIXresizer,it will re size all your tiffs into the required Jpeg size in one batch, very handy.
 
Blasted said:
The purpose of this is to have a nice quality archive of pictures.
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The negatives are the archive and they are going to be around a lot longer than your scan files. They are also of a much higher quality than a scan.

My advice is to only scan as and when you need to use the image rather than do them all at once. That way you can spend more time on each scan and scan it to suit the intended purpose.

Scanning everything at the highest quality possible will just become a chore and the larger the number of negatives, the more you will end up resenting the idea of doing it.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
The negatives are the archive and they are going to be around a lot longer than your scan files. They are also of a much higher quality than a scan.

My advice is to only scan as and when you need to use the image rather than do them all at once. That way you can spend more time on each scan and scan it to suit the intended purpose.
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Steve, based on the OP's comments, I'm not sure all the negatives are available. My other comment on your approach is that it's often pretty hard to know what's there, so it's hard to know "when you need to use the image"; I found this with my own negs and slides (going back 40 years), and decided to scan all of the earliest stuff, and then more selectively after the family came along. Faced with my father's wooden box of negatives, I'm not sure how to approach it; the "do it all" approach was obvious for the DufayColours, but the rest will need to be selective based on any clues available, or I'll go mad!
 
It's a valid point regarding selectively choosing what to scan. However I've scanned the lot, that's negatives and photographs. What I have done is bought several smaller collections together. I have of course skipped doing the nothing in particular pictures and concentrated on the family stuff. What that has given me is an archive In a format where people can use it. I can share around the family and the pictures are getting looked at rather than being stuffed under the bed. Yes it's been a long process but one I have actually found very rewarding. If I faced it again I would probably look at settings more closely, but it's all a learning curve.

Thanks
 
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