 Mark D. Duea |
Scanning Color Slides - Resolution I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I have between 600 and 700 color slides from 1959 - 1985 (the family slides) that I want to scan and turn into a dvd. Most are 126, a few are 110, a few 35mm. I have a scanner capable of 2400dpi resolution, but scanning them at that level (in .tif) creates HUGE files. What resolution do I need to scan at if my only purpose is to put them on a cd and eventually create a dvd? Should I stay with .tif for this, or do .bmp or .jpeg? I'm kind of overwhelmed right now and would appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks!
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doug Nelson |
I am also into this process. As long as you are going to the trouble of scanning them, why not scan at 2400 and archive them? The files are huge; let 'em be huge. CD's are cheap. The reason is that some day, someone may want to print some of them. In my own case, my 75 year old mom refuses to touch a computer, so everything has to be in print form. If you are scanning in high-bit mode, do your brightness/contrast/color correction in high bit, THEN go to Image/Image Mode in Photoshop and click on 8-bit. Your file size will drop by half. I reduce mine to about a 750 pixel width, 600 pixel height, if a vertical. I SAVE AS JPEG's at a compression level of 10 (Photoshop's scale). I am intrigued that you are scanning 126 and 110 film. Are you using a flatbed scanner with masks for those sizes? I have had to resort to scanning the prints for many of my old family shots.
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Mark D. Duea |
I have a Microtek flatbed scanner, but it doesn't have a mask. I don't have Photoshop; I have Paint Shop Pro. This whole thing is kind of "learn as you go" for me. I understand that scanning at 2400 would be best, but what I've run into is when I have the scanned photo up in Paint Shop, it becomes difficult to manipulate because of my computers memory and processor speed. I could scan the slide at 2400 to archive and then scan it again at a lower resolution for my dvd project. I appreciate your feedback and welcome any other ideas you have! Thanks!
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doug Nelson |
My computer has been obsolete for a couple of years now. I find that more RAM is the cheapest way to upgrade performance. When you ever get to the point of scanning at 2400, you only need to do the scan once. Set the resolution to 300, save to CD. this will be your archive. Then set the resolution to 72, size as explained earlier, and SAVE AS in a file for putting onto a DVD or CD.
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Mark D. Duea |
Doug - I really appreciate the information you're giving me, but I'm a little confused. Say I've scanned the slide at 2400 dpi and saved it. What is the "set the resolution to 300" instruction? You've said that I only scan once, but that would be the 2400 dpi. How do I turn that into a 300 dpi? I'm sorry for asking what is probably a foolish question, but I want to be sure I understand. Thanks again!
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doug Nelson |
I'm not familiar with PS Pro, but there has to be a way of dealing with the results of a scan. When I scan at 2400 ppi, I get an image 1-in by 1 1/2-in that's 2400 pixels per inch. That's not very useful. So, what I want Paint Shop pro to do is to put these pixels into a bigger frame, spreading them out more, and not throwing any away. There should be a way to enter 300 as the resolution, and let the software calculate the image dimensions for you. It should come out to about an 8 x 12 (for a 35mm negative or slide). If the total file size in megabytes drops, something's wrong. There are excellent books out on PS Pro. Some folks prefer it to Photoshop. OK, once you've got a 300 ppi image at 8 x 12, you can burn them to CD. You can then take the files on your hard drive and convert each one to a JPEG. This time, you WILL be throwing away some pixels. Just size it as explained above. See f the Articles on my web page are any help. In the meantime, I'll see what folks on the web have to say about PaintShop pro's way of sizing images.
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doug Nelson |
OK, see http://www.scantips.com/basics2g.html and see if what Wayne Fulton says about scaling, resampling, and PS Pro makes sense. Get back with me if you have a problem.
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Mark D. Duea |
Doug - THANKS!!!!! You have been very helpful and I appreciate it! :)
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