Scanned MF images @ 100Mb - is there any point?

tikkathreebarrel

tikkathreebarrel

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,150
Edit My Images
Yes
My laptop is s..l..o..w..l..y.. processing scanned MF images. I had the film developed professionally and I'm putting the negs through my Epson V500 scanner on the max resolution I can get away with which is about 9000 things per wotsits.

Putting aside that I need to improve my neg handling so as not to infect the negs with dust, bits of fluff etc:bonk::bonk::bonk::bonk: I wonder, really if there is any point to such high res for me. I'm saving my Elements-edited images at max size which I see is around 100Mb per image.

I mean, really, for hobby photography is there any possible point to such large files?
 
What format you scanning to?
If I scan in Tiff, with my sheep & chitty neg-scanner, that's about the file-size I get, with a pix count roughly that as I get from the D3200, 4000x6000... which is probably the point... I'm getting about as much resolution of the negs as I am from DX Digi.
100Mb per file is a bit heavy though; but if I scan to jpg, then colour & contrast is dire.
So, 100Mb a pop it is; then I open in PS and save as jpg, which brings them down to 10Mb.... and applying compression to web-level, down to 1Mb, before re-sizing for web-display.... which brings them down to perhaps 300k!
But, I archive and work from the higher res jpg's.
 
My older scanner only goes up to 2900 dpi, the new one to 9600 or something silly. Makes my macbook overheat, so I use the older scanner more often! :P
 
tikkathreebarrel said:
My laptop is s..l..o..w..l..y.. processing scanned MF images. I had the film developed professionally and I'm putting the negs through my Epson V500 scanner on the max resolution I can get away with which is about 9000 things per wotsits.

Putting aside that I need to improve my neg handling so as not to infect the negs with dust, bits of fluff etc:bonk::bonk::bonk::bonk: I wonder, really if there is any point to such high res for me. I'm saving my Elements-edited images at max size which I see is around 100Mb per image.

I mean, really, for hobby photography is there any possible point to such large files?
Click to expand...

With my Epson scanner, I usually scan at max dpi, which is 4800, and then resize them immediately to about 34% (10,800x10,8000 to 3,600x3,600), which is big enough to get 12 inch prints at 300 dpi.

Essentially, I try to get all of the possible detail of the max resolution scan, but convert them to a more manageable and realistic size for printing and storage.

If I know that I won't be printing something to 12 inches, I'll convert them to an even smaller size as necessary.
 
You would be lucky to get a true 2400dpi from an Epson scanner, above that is software manipulation...so scanning higher will not give you more detail but just less pixel breakup which is better for large prints or cropping.
 
I generally stick with a similar work flow as with the dslr. Scan them all a tiff, moving the sliders to get the maximum range, decide if any are worth the disk space, delete the dross, compress the marginal ones and keep the best few as tiff just in case I want to come back to it and save scanning.
 
excalibur2 said:
You would be lucky to get a true 2400dpi from an Epson scanner, above that is software manipulation...so scanning higher will not give you more detail but just less pixel breakup which is better for large prints or cropping.
Click to expand...

That's what I'd read elsewhere online as well. To get the most out of the scanner with this in mind, the resource I was reading essentially recommended to scan at the highest resolution initially (presumably for less 'pixel breakup' as you say) and then downsize after to match the true resolution of the scanner.
 
For a V500 theres little point going past about 1800 dpi as test targets have revealed that it is unable to resolve any more detail past that so whilst it can optically scan up to 6400, it'll just be a bigger file with no more resolved detail.
 
skysh4rk said:
That's what I'd read elsewhere online as well. To get the most out of the scanner with this in mind, the resource I was reading essentially recommended to scan at the highest resolution initially (presumably for less 'pixel breakup' as you say) and then downsize after to match the true resolution of the scanner.
Click to expand...

Yep that's best with what most of us have i.e. Epson scanner....and some say scan in Tiff first...and some say don't keep saving jpgs (if using say Photoshop) as each time you save reduces the quality. Well I'm open minded if there is a scanning expert in the house :shrug:
But if you are just going to post shots on the forum at about 2mp then scanning at 9600dpi is a bit over the top.
 
I usually scan at 1200-1600dpi and it's more than enough. Is it really worth spending triple the time for a slight increase in quality?
 
retrogamer1990 said:
I usually scan at 1200-1600dpi and it's more than enough. Is it really worth spending triple the time for a slight increase in quality?
Click to expand...

It depends what you want to do with the scans. I often like to get my photos printed rather than stare at them on the computer screen all the time, so I like to do what's necessary for them to be printed at 8x8 or 12x12 at 300dpi.

If I know that I'll only be viewing the photos on the web then I don't scan or store them in as high a resolution.
 
I generally scan at 2400 on my V500 and that produces plenty big enough files and more than enough detail to print out at A4 and a bit bigger.
 
I scan medium format at 2400dpi on my Epson 4180. Even then I'm not convinced I'm getting 2400, let alone any higher.
 
......Also there is a difference between scanning 120 and 35mm, if you can get the neg flat for 120 then Epson scanners are good......maybe very good as I've never compared a high quality 120 lab scan (true 2400dpi ) with my V750.
 
A while back I wanted to sort the wheat from the chaff for my 35mm lenses, and using the Epson V750 it was good enough to sort out the inferior lenses and here is an example testing a Hexanon 50mm lens..the crop would be about 5ft wide i.e. scanning across the screen.



 
Last edited:
I tend to scan 120 at between 2400 and 3000 dpi, it's a compromise of sharpness, file size and print size.

I scan 35mm at 1200dpi (I think, it's been a while) because the lenses i use on my 35mm bodies aren't as good as those on my medium formats.
 
excalibur2 said:
......Also there is a difference between scanning 120 and 35mm
Click to expand...

Definitely. For throwaway 35mm stuff I scan it with my Epson, but for better stuff (of which there is definitely little!), it goes through a Plustek 7200 at 3600dpi. Apparently the Plusteks do very well if you scan at 7200dpi and then downsample them, but the straight 3600dpi output is usually good enough for me.
 
freecom2 said:
Definitely. For throwaway 35mm stuff I scan it with my Epson, but for better stuff (of which there is definitely little!), it goes through a Plustek 7200 at 3600dpi. Apparently the Plusteks do very well if you scan at 7200dpi and then downsample them, but the straight 3600dpi output is usually good enough for me.
Click to expand...

I have a Plustek for 35mm as well and I will scan at 7200 and then downsample for my better photos. I find this process offers a slight improvement over those scanned at 3600dpi.
 
HMMM I must be doing something wrong :)

If I scan at full tilt on my Microtek scanner say a 6x7 slide film then I can get a file size of 500-600Mb.

It does have a ton of detail in it but i do have to reduce the file size a little if I am working on multiple layers.
 
skysh4rk said:
I have a Plustek for 35mm as well and I will scan at 7200 and then downsample for my better photos. I find this process offers a slight improvement over those scanned at 3600dpi.
Click to expand...

No doubting it must be true - I just very rarely use 35mm for any 'proper' photography so I never really bother.
 
I'm happy with the scanning at Asda for posting shots on a forum :)
 
anything i want to print i do at 2400dpi, everything else gets a pretty low res "contact print" scan just so i know what it looks like.

When i brought my v750 i came across a pretty good website that ran some in depth tests on a variety of scanners and 2400 seemed to be the limit for most of them, i certainly cant see any difference no matter how zoomed in i am over 2400 and a 5x4 scan of a colour neg at that res makes for a ridiculously sized file anyway so i try not to do it all the time.

Some things will help pinch a little more detail out of a scan like etched glass inserts to keep bendy negatives straight, so its worth looking into those too.
 
on the tiff vs jpg thing, I think tiff has no compression, and can go to 16bit, so more colours, its what software often converts raw files too for editing.

a normal jpg is 8bit, there are jpg 2000 and jpg xr that have extended range I think, I need to look into them
 
ugh... i'm getting 70mb per file for RAW TIFF on 35mm films at 2k dpi on my v500 so sounds about right i guess? but yeah for non serious shoots I think jpeg should suffice otherwise 70mb-100mb per file is abit excessive for facebook/forums :D

though anyone wanna share their vuescan configuration for jpeg scanning? I can't seem to get it right without having to do some post processing.
 
This is getting consensual. Next batch I'll put through on 9600 and on 2thou-something and we'll see what we see.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top