Scanning photographs at 1200 or 600dpi

Blasted

Blasted

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I have just started to scan some old photographs i have. I have started with the 3.5 X 3.5 inch ones and will gradually work up to the larger ones, there are a fair few. I may possibly make a book out of a few and some will be displayed on my website for family.

I am using an Epson v500 and have been scanning at 1200dpi and 24 bit colour. Saving as a Tiff I get a 49 mb file. But comparing one at 600dpi I can see little difference and the file size is only about 12 mb.

Should I drop down to 600dpi or should I continue as is?
Is it possible to reduce the size using lightroom without losing any quality?

I don't want to scan so small that I'm losing quality as its bit of an archive job as well.

Thanks
 
When you say "phtographs", I presume you mean prints? If so, I'm not sure it's worth scanning at much more than 300 dpi, maybe 600 dpi at a pinch if you want to double the linear dimensions. But whoever made the prints has pretty much fixed the quality at that level; there isn't particularly likely to be a lot of extra detail that's worth going up to 1200 dpi for, At least, that's my thoughts.

If you have the negatives, say 2.25 inch (6 cm) square, you'd want to go at least 1200 dpi to dig out the quality for larger prints. That said, I've never scanned MF negatives yet; I tend to scan 35mm negatives (1 by 1.5 inches) at anything from 1200-3600 dpi depending on my interest in the particular negative!
 
Its probably not worth scanning past 600dpi for prints as although for true optical prints there is no 300 dpi limit (from the original machine) like modern laser or LED exposed prints its unlikely that the print can honestly hold any more detail than that. So I would just scan at 600 dpi.
 
Blasted said:
Going by the focus of some, I don't want to go to high. :gag:
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If you have the time why not scan at 1200dpi just to make sure even if it's overkill, then downsize it in Photoshop (or whatever) to what size you want.
 
It really depends on how it was printed in the first place, as said above. If they were printed from the negative via enlarger in a darkroom, then 600 DPI or more would be good. If it was scanned and printed from a file, as they pretty much all are now if done commercially, then don't bother going past 300 DPI imho.
 
Woodsy said:
It really depends on how it was printed in the first place, as said above. If they were printed from the negative via enlarger in a darkroom, then 600 DPI or more would be good. If it was scanned and printed from a file, as they pretty much all are now if done commercially, then don't bother going past 300 DPI imho.
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This.

Wet prints can hold a stack of detail, a surprising amount in fact
 
having just gone through the process of scanning up a whole bunch of old photo's - all from the wet print B&W days, and pretty much all shot on 120 at either 6x6 or 6x4.5 and printed at contact print size - I cheerfully scanned the whole shooting match at 1200dpi, just to get something that I could give to a couple of the relatives so they could have a sensible sized print made.
 
Im not sure what shop, there were a number on the high street at the time, this was circa 30 years ago. As far as i know it was a case of shoot using a 35mm film and then deliver to shop, go back and collect handfull of small prints. its these prints im scanning.

Scanning at high res seems to show up all the paper markings, its like a moon scape.
 
Blasted said:
Im not sure what shop, there were a number on the high street at the time, this was circa 30 years ago. As far as i know it was a case of shoot using a 35mm film and then deliver to shop, go back and collect handfull of small prints. its these prints im scanning.

Scanning at high res seems to show up all the paper markings, its like a moon scape.
Click to expand...

If it was 30 years ago then theres no chance of it being from a digital scan, that method didn't become viable until at least 10 years after that and certainly was not economical in comparison to optical prints for a good few years after.
 
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