Scanning & printing advice

RaglanSurf

RaglanSurf

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I have some shots that some friends would like prints of, a variety of 35mm, 6x45 and some 6x6. They're all colour shots and I want to get them printed 8" x 12" for the rectangular shots and 8" x 8" for the square.

Since there's 8 shots I really don't want to be spending a fortune but of course I would like them to be up to a decent standard.

So do I scan at home and get them printed on-line?

Do I send then away to be scanned and printed?

Or do I send them away to be printed traditionally?

A couple of the shots are reversal film so I cant get them traditionally printed any more so will have to be scanned anyway, so in terms of continuity of quality what is my best option?
 
id scan them in and send the files off for printing. You can control the look of the image then. If whoever prints from the neg then they will just print it as is.
 
I've only scanned at home and sent off for prints twice (200 in batches of 100), and I was pleased with the 6 X 4 prints I got back...but I was always worried if the printer they used would match my scans as when I do home printing what I see on the screen is not exactly what I get from the printer.
 
I managed to get decent 8x10 prints using scans from the V500 at DSCL. Thats the way I'd go at least at first, cheap proofs to make sure the image will stand up to printing before getting better ones made. Though tbh I'm happy with the prints from DSCL.
 
I've also been using DSCL and they have been excellent. I just send them a digital file scanned in the v500 but I have been having them printed on their more expensive papers, which aren't that much more than the normal. I like the Museum paper, it works really well for most things.
 
I got a few prints from Peak and they were reasonable but darker than I expected. In the Printing sub-forum, they always ask at this point, have you had your screen calibrated? The answer is no, and not likely to for a while. But I have been increasing the brightness when saving files for printing, and I've also turned down the brightness of the screen, which helps.

BTW I believe both DSCL and Peak use the C-something approach to printing, using lasers onto photographic papers. Perhaps that's the right approach for F&C! However, I've also heard that good inkjet prints by a skilled craftsman have more weight in the image. But like Dean, I may be wrong.

Anyway, my suggestion would be: scan at home, you have lots of control of the digital image (you could always try scanning the negs as positives and inverting with ColorPerfect, which does a great job), then send away for printing.
 
I'd definitely recommend DSCL, I've used them quite a bit. Had about 60 prints made up to 16x12 for an exhibition, and they were fantastic. Price is really good for what you get. Not used them for any film scans though, mine were all from digital shots earlier in the year before I moved over to the dark side that is film
 
How did you folks make sure that what you saw on your monitor was what you would get from the print? Did you bother with small proof prints before ordering the larger prints?

Also, they seem to have a huge choice of papers, so apart from @Andysnap's recommendation of their museum paper what have other folks gone for?
 
I used an Ilford test print a while back to you calibrate my monitor but basically this just involved turning the brightness well down. The file I sent was gray scale so any cast would have come from their gear and I'd have complained to them.

I'm sure dscl have a similar colour calibration print so you could start with that.

I ordered 8x10 purely to check the out put of the scanner would hold up to that. So just used their cheapest paper.
 
Generally I just make the image for printing about 20% lighter than for on screen. This has always seemed to work for me although it isn't very scientific.

Andy
 
Just resurrecting this thread, @Andysnap and others if you're scanning for a print what resolution do you all scan at?
 
I only ever really scan at 2400, for everything.
 
Cheers folks, I do too but I've never had my stuff printed professionally before so I'd thought I'd check.
 
Not sure you would need to scan them all at 2400.

For 12x8" print you would need an image 3600x2400 pixels in size, assuming a 300 dpi print. To get this from 35mm you'd need to scan at a resolution of 2500 or so.

But for the 6x6 it's much lower if you want an 8x8" print. 8x8" at 300 dpi is 2400x2400 pixels. To get this from a 6x6 (think the actual image is 56x56mm but could be wrong) you would only need to scan at approx 1100. I think if you scanned the 6x6 at 2400 then it would give you an image big enough to print at over 17.5" each side.

I could be wrong though (it happens a lot), but that is my understanding
 
I've done A3 from a 2400 scan and i was happy enough with it.....similary A4 from 1600 scans.

I have to confess though that i generally scan 1200 as most of my prints are 6x4 postcard size
 
It wasn't so much raw resolution that worried me, more if the scanner was actually producing reproducible detail not just noise and data.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Whats the biggest you've printed from a 2400 scan? I've don't 10x8 and I'm curious how much more I can push it before I need to farm out my scanning.
Click to expand...

I think a 12" x 12" is the biggest I've had printed and it was fine, but as Carl says that was from a 6 x 6 neg so plenty of pixels to spare.

Andy
 
I don't scan at 2400, but I just worked back from a scan that worked well at A3 and I must have scanned at 4800. The negative was FP4 from a Mamiya RZ67. Because of grain issues, I don't like pushing black and white to larger than A3 from roll film anyway. The largest print I've made is A2 (from 5x4) which isn't much of an enlargement really.
 
I usually scan 35mm at 2400 ppi for shots I'm interested in, and have printed these at 10*8 or A4, looking fine. I've done a couple at A3 that were scanned at 3600 ppi, these don't look quite so great but I think it's a calibration issue more than anything else...
 
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