BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Printing Digital Pictures

Photography Question 

Connie Niehaus
 

Scanning Prints to CD - And Printability


I want to scan some older photos and save them on CDs for my family. I also want the family to be able to print out any they'd like. Is there a good guideline for dpi and image size to do this successfully?


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September 04, 2004

 

Vince Broesch
  If you are scanning prints, scan at about 300 dpi (otherwise known as samples per inch, SPI). Then people can print them out at 300 dpi. Save as 8 bit per channel (total 24 bit) RGB TIFF ... that is, if they are in color. If B/W, save as 8-bit grayscale TIFF.
Vince
www.PhotoAgo.com


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September 04, 2004

 

Connie Niehaus
  TY, Vince (TIFF as opposed to JPEG?)


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September 04, 2004

 

Vince Broesch
  JPEG makes neat small files, but at the cost of tossing out data. If a file is going to be printed, it is best to save as TIFF. The file will be much larger, but there is no loss of the data, which is so important in printing. Since you are writing to CD, the larger file size should not be as much of a concern as the print quality. Also, a TIFF can later be opened, edited and saved with no loss of quality, whereas a JPEG will lose even more quality with each edit/save that it goes through.
Vince
www.PhotoAgo.com


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September 04, 2004

 

Connie Niehaus
  Oh, boy. This is probably Photography 101, but you've just answered a question I had about some pictures I fooled and fooled and FOOLED with that ended up blurry and undefined. Now I know why. Thanks a million!!


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September 04, 2004

 

Steven Butterworth
  However is it not the case that one makes a picture, review it amend it and save it. Never to be messed with again? This is how I do it.

I have done this with 100 or so old black and whites going back in time to 1920's onwards until 1949. I scanned them all in with the small battery operated HP Photosmart 1200 (http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPF-Hewlett_Packard_HP_PhotoSmart_1200_Photoscanner)
and edited in The Gimp under Linux, and Mac OS X.

This was one of my best buys of computer equipment for doing such jobs.

So what should we all be doing for longevity of our images? If we take pictures in .jpg format should we be saving them after editing as TIFF??????


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September 07, 2004

 

Michael Kaplan
  You can find out a bit more about TIF vs JPG vs PSD which I and others have answered at this thread:
http://www.betterphoto.com/forms/qnaDetail.php?threadID=11419
Michael Kaplan
Canon EOS-20D
http://www.pbase.com/mkaplan


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September 18, 2004

 
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