Hi Jon,
My main scan tip is this - scan in the negative/slide at the optical
resolution of the scanner. If the true optical resolution of the
scanner is 3200dpi, then scan at that. Scanning at any other resolution
is really just scanning at the full resolution and then up/downsampling.
You might as well do that yourself later.
Second, I think the 72dpi claim is wide of the mark. Once you've
scanned an image, the resolution you scanned it at is irrelevant, you
just have an image x pixels by y pixels. You can then resize it to fit
the screen. This is much better than scanning to get a monitor-sized
image in the first place. Try the two side by side - you should find
that scanning at full res then resampling gives you a way sharper image
than scanning to get a smaller image originally.
Number of bits - my scanner can do 36 bit colour but I always scan at 24
bit. Seems good enough for my purposes, and it also keeps the file
sizes managable.
Other scanner settings - I played with the gamma settings for each
colour channel on my scanner to correct a green cast it originally gave
my scans, and to give me brighter scans than it originally did, but
colour, sharpening, contrast etc I do myself later. I don't reckon
scanners ever do a better job with their own software than you can do in
a proper image editing program.
I tend to scan essentially all my photos, archive them onto CD and then
process the best ones for web use. I scan at full resolution (2700dpi
in my case), 24 bit colour, and save as TIFFs with LZW compression -
that way I fit about one roll of film onto a CD. I also resize the
images to 700px wide and save as JPGs on my hard drive, so I can easily
look through them. Sounds similar to what you intend to do and I find
it works very well - quick access and viewing on the hard drive and then
easy retrieval of the full res images when I need them.
Hope that's helpful,
Roger
Jon Mitchell wrote:
Hi Guys,
Well I bought an "Espon Perfection 3200 Photo" scanner the other day and I
am rather pleased with it at the moment. It's a flatbed, with the light in
the lid so you can scan slides & negs, etc as well.
But, I need a little advice from the members of the list who are infinitely
more experienced than I.
Basically, I am faced with too many choices when scanning. I need to know
what you would recommend, as far as the settings are concerned, for various
types of scan.
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