Scanners, DPI, and digital editing

[rjensen11]

What do you guys normally scan your images at? I use 600dpi only because for some reason I couldn't get 1200DPI to work, it might be my scanner, it might be my software, I don't know. All I know is that I have to clean the glass pannel because there are WAY too many white dots all over my scans!

 

[rjensen11]

PS: I save the files as .png instead of .jpg, I think it keeps the image looking better8^D

 

[Flerbizky]

Originally posted by rjensen11
What do you guys normally scan your images at? I use 600dpi only because for some reason I couldn't get 1200DPI to work, it might be my scanner, it might be my software, I don't know. All I know is that I have to clean the glass pannel because there are WAY too many white dots all over my scans!

Depends... What do you do with the images ?. If it's for web I'd say that a 150 is sufficient. Unless you want people to be able to dl highres versions of the pics... Are you gonna print to a glossy papered magazine you need 1200 atleast. But is that interpolated or optical ?... If it is for a newspaper, hell, 150 is still ok. After all, newspaper paper is worse for printing that toiletpaper.. Bleeds like you wouldn't believe it...



edit: All our negatives are scanned in 1350dpi optical, 48bit. App. 2000x1400 pixels pr. image

 

[Solid Fro]

I always scan my pictures at 1200 dpi and save them as .tif files. Then I take them to Photoshop, resize them, and convert them to .psd for editing, .bmp for printing, and .jpg for web.

 

[Shannon]

I don't know what I scan my images at...

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I scan my pics as negatives. 2900dpi gives images in the region of 4300x2800 pixels. These are all saved as TIFFs, and I resize from there.

If I'm scanning a non-picture I scan at 300dpi, and then resize accordingly. I do relatively little scan-to-print unless it's photos, so apart from on the slide scanner, ultimate resolution isn't much of an issue for me.

 

[Shannon]

Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
I scan my pics as negatives. 2900dpi gives images in the region of 4300x2800 pixels. These are all saved as TIFFs, and I resize from there.

If I'm scanning a non-picture I scan at 300dpi, and then resize accordingly. I do relatively little scan-to-print unless it's photos, so apart from on the slide scanner, ultimate resolution isn't much of an issue for me.

Wouldn't that take forever to scan? Plus, those TIFFs would fill your HDD up fairly fast being 4300x2800 pixels.

 

[rjensen11]

Jeese, I need a new scanner......

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by Eddy
Wouldn't that take forever to scan? Plus, those TIFFs would fill your HDD up fairly fast being 4300x2800 pixels.

It takes about 2 minutes to do each frame, and each frame is approximately 35MB in size. Lucky for me that I've got 120GB of online storage!

 

[Shannon]

Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
It takes about 2 minutes to do each frame, and each frame is approximately 35MB in size. Lucky for me that I've got 120GB of online storage!

You delete those TIFFs after resizing, etc right?

By the way - my scanner is set to scan at 300dpi. I might up that to 1200dpi after reading this thread.