 Dennis |
Equipment to Scan and Print I'm a keen amateur with about 30 years of slides, prints, negatives (mostly 35mm), etc. Thousands of images in all sorts of film but mainly Kodak. Old prints include hand-me-downs from generations but also prints in glossy and matte, different sizes, and so on. I want to organise it to archive most of it and to print some of it for albums for my kids. I want to ultimately make most of the prints 6 X 4s. Here are the questions: 1. What's the best way to scan these? I've been thinking about the HP S20 but I note in the specs that it only scans to 300 dpi optical for prints but 2400 for slides and negatives. Is the 300 dpi enough for printing. What does the optical mean? 2. What printer should I use? (I've never used a colour printer before.) What advantage does the HP Photosmart printer have over a colour deskjet? I've got brochures on Photosmart 1000, 1215, and 1218, but I can't evaluate the important differences (other than price). 3. To put prints into an album and protected with cellophane, is photopaper necessary or would a good quality paper be OK? I hope someone can assist. Thanks. Dennis
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doug Nelson |
Dennis The HP S20 is the only film scanner I know of that will scan prints (up to 4 x 6) as well as negatives and slides. 300 pixels per inch is fine for prints, unless you want to greatly enlarge them. Scantips.com can tell you more about the resolution for scanning for different purposes. I'd scan the slides and negatives at the full 2400 ppi. A scanner's (or digital camera's) optical resolution is the true resolution that's being scanned. Anything else is interpolated resolution, in which the software adds pixels to fake a higher resolution. The HP scans a true 2400 ppi for film. Try the color deskjet with the company's best photo grade paper, and see if the result is acceptable. HP and Epson, maybe others as well, make excellent photo quality inkjet printers. See sphoto.com for a review of a Photosmart printer. See luminous-landscape.com for information on the Epsons. The Epson 870 can be had from Epson's web site at an amazing $150. I can attest to the quality of their prints. Always use the manufacturer's best paper. Epson has a glossy and a matte finish. It's amazing how many retailers try to sell printers based on how they print on typing paper. Nikon's film scanners have an edge over HP in terms of shadow detail with dense slides, but the Nikon won't scan a print, as does the HP. I'm pickier than most people. Many people find the HP's performance just fine. Sphoto.com can tell you more. HP's product support is exemplary, as is Nikon's.
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Dennis |
Wow, Doug. Such a quick response and so helpful. Your answers have helped me heaps. I will take an image to the merchants and get them to try out different printers for me, using photo quality paper. Appreciatively, Dennis
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William Snyder |
I would go with a Nikon film scanner such as LS2000 and, if you can afford it, buy a seperate flatbed scanner for the prints. You will want more than 300ppi if you are going to enlarge the prints at all. I had a hp s20 and it was ok for a while, I have since upgraded to a Nikon and I am much happier with my final print output. The hp 990 is an excellent photo printer. Good luck Bill
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Johnathan R. Peal |
I use the HP Photosmart 1315 printer and I would highly recommend this printer. It accepts Compact Flash Cards, Smart Media, Memory stick and IBM Microdrive right on the printer. It has it's own LCD display so that you don't need a computer to size, print and do some basic editing/color correction etc... directly from the printer. It has a tray for 4X6 paper which is nice. You can also use the memory slots to download pics to your computer from the printer. The quality of the photo's on either HP or even Epson glossy photo paper is awesome. I cannot tell the difference from studio developed prints. HP recommends HP paper for best results. It comes with great software that easily lets you size your photos and print them out. It also comes with ACDSee software which is really nice for color correction and basic editing. I use the supplied software and Adobe PhotoDeluxe for advanced editing, brushes, etc. It's a bit pricey but worth every penny $399.00 retail I believe. Hope this helps.
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Dennis |
Thanks Johnathan, As it happens, I've made my choices and bought a Nikon Cooscan ED IV which I'm very pleased with. I also got an Epson 895 printer and it is superb, although thirsty for ink. I've decided to use it mainly to check printed colour and "one-off" prints. Part of the reason is cost and experience but also, the only paper I can get here (Singapore) is sized A$ which cuts into four 4.15" X 5.85" prints. It's a fag deciding on the relative dimensions of the print before scanning. What I do now is scan my images for 6 x 4 and burn them onto a CD. I usually make two scans - one for printing and one for the monitor. I know I can resize the TIFF image to JPEG but I seem to get a smaller file at adequate resolution when I rescan. Thanks for your thoughts. Dennis
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