200mb or 300mb Drum Scans from LF?

I've been working on getting a bunch of my 4x5 and 6x17cm transparancies Drum Scanned at PhotoCraft here in Boulder. I dont normally print much larger than 30 inches on the long side but I would like to be able to print up to 50 inches with the 4x5's and possibly 90 inches on the long side with the 6x17's. The guys at PhotoCraft seem to think 200MB is more than enough to handle these requirements. I was reading West Coast Imaging's FAQ page and they recommend scanning at 300mb -340mb and subscribe to the 'scan once principle'. I tend to agree with WCI on this one and I really dont want to have to re-scan any of my 200mb files up to 300+ if I need to print something large in the future. My question is this. What do most of you LF'ers Drum Scan your transparancies at?. Is there really that much of a difference between a 200mb file vs. 300mb when printed at larger sizes?. Obviously this is a costly endevor and I would like to feel confident that the extra money I am spending for a 300mb scan is worthwhile. Thanks in advance.

Tom,

This is a repost of the picture from the previous posting:

Rice Terraces - Near Hapao, Philippines

Wisner 4x5
Schneider 110mm XL
Velvia 50
Howtek DrumScan 3200dpi


I have been making drum scans for several people on the forum. The biggest stuff that I have been scanning from 4x5 is ~530MB for gigantic prints being made by Jack Brauer. I will let Jack speak to whether or not there was enough detail. I think if you output to Chromira the DPI requirement is less than if you go to a inkjet. But I still think that 200dpi sounds pretty light to me for your requirements.

Check this example I posted earlier this year of a >500MB drum scan. Drum Scanning Example .

If you are in the Denver metro area and would like to stop by and see some examples of drum scans at different sizes let me know. If you would like to have some drum scans made and/or have a tour of 'the facililty' give me a call.

RichieV

I'm in the 300-350 Mb camp (for 4x5). But 200 Mb will suffice for Chromira (it has good internal up-ressing). I've done up to 40" wide from a 200 Mb file on Chromira, and the results were excellent. But for prints that large on LightJet or InkJet, I'd want 300 Mb. YMMV.

Hi Tom,

That's a tough question. If you open up a 4x5 ratio image in photoshop and play around with the image sizes, you can see that a 40"x50" @ 200dpi = about 230mb, @ 300dpi = 515mb. So that's about your range. I don't think there's really that big of a difference between printing at 200 vs 300 dpi.

From my (limited) experience, I'd say that a good 200mb scan picks up most of the detail that is visible in the film, and beyond that the image doesn't necessary get much visibly sharper but rather you have more pixel density.

Anyways back to your question... I'd go with the 300mb just to be safe; 200mb is ok but probably just a bit shy of what you need for 40"x50".

Thanks guys for all your help. I've contacted Rich off the board to see about having him do some of the drum scans for me. I was figuring it was best if I had files scanned in the 300mb-350mb range. I feel like each time I go to Pcraft they want to scan for the size of the print being made at the time. Dont get me wrong I love Pcraft and think there awesome. The biggest prints I've made to date are only 10x30's and 16x20's and the scans they have done have been great. I understand it keeps the cost down but I feel like some of the early drum scans I had Pcraft do will have to be re-done if they are ever printed really large. I'd rather do it right the first time then have to pay for it twice.

I own an Optronics ColorGetter Eagle drum scanner and scan my 4x5s and 6x17s at 600MB. This gives me 360 dpi (optimal for Epson printers) for a 40x50 inch print from the 4x5s or a 24-inch-wide print from the 6x17s. This is probably overkill, but after going through all the work of wet mounting why not scan at the highest practical resolution possible? This is a nice luxury to have since I'm not paying to outsource the scans. I can see more detail in a 600MB vs. a 300MB drum scan but can't directly comment on whether that detail comes across in the print itself.

I would also like to know the definitive answer to Tom's post. I 'm a newbie at printing 4X5 shots but I'm about to see what a 40in X 50in print at 260dpi printed on the PhotoCraft Lightjet printer will look like. I scanned the beastie on my Epson 4870 and did the Photoshop CS2 stuff to get the Level 2 price. My experience with PCraft and Level 2 LightJet prints from my own Nikon LS 4000 35mm scans is very good. For 4X5, my scan and CS2 processing times made me upgrade my computer to 2G of RAM and a couple of WD Raptor 10,000 rpm drives.

Now mounting the beastie!