Posted by Andy Brehm on April 30, 2008 at 11:26 PM
I know a lot of you large format guys send your stuff off to get drum scanned and I was wondering if there was any place in particular that you would recommend? A co-worker of mine has an old photograph that they want scanned at really high resolution and I told them that I have hear drum scanning gives really high resolution files. But, being an all digital guy myself Im not sure where you would have such a thing done. Where should I send my co-workers business?
Thanks in advance.
Andy
Posted by John Mumaw on April 30, 2008 at 11:42 PM
If your co-worker has a photograph as opposed to a transparency, then any decent flatbed scanner will do a fine job.
You only need to scan a photograph at 300 ppi (a bit more if you plan to enlarge it).
My flatbed would scan it to a high PPI, up to 4800 PPI, but there is a big resolution difference between a professional scanner and a consumer flatbed like my Epson 4990. Though in this case perhaps a professional flatbed might be the best solution. The lab I use, Accent Photo in Colorado Springs has a high end professional Fuji flatbed scanner. Be advised that their scan rates will be quite high and I haven't used their scanning services yet so I don't know how good their scan operator is.
Here are some examples to show the difference between a drum scan and a consumer flatbed scan. The film is 4X5 Provia and no sharpening has been applied to either crop.
Unless the print is of particularly high quality you might not be able to get more detail out of it than 300-600ppi. In other words, you can keep scanning to more resolution, but you you'll just get a bigger file, no additional detail.
There are a couple of places in town you can use to have images drum scanned – including Reed Photo and Denver Digital (The Slideprinter).
Drum scanning is very expensive – so I would only recommend it if you plan on making a very large print. You can easily create a 16x20 from 4x5 film using an inexpensive flatbed scanner as mentioned. However, if you want a larger final image, have a smaller negative such as 35mm or medium format, or have very dense shadows on the film, you may consider drum scanning. You want your final file to be anywhere from 240 to 360 dpi at the desired print-size.
If you want a master or archive file you should get a scan between 300MB to 550MB (assuming you have a 4x5 piece of film). Rich and I do our own drum scanning, and we both agree that scanning a 4x5 negative at 3200 spi yields the best results for creating a master/archive file. This yields a file around 550MB (8 bit) and has a native size of approximately 40x50 @ 300 dpi.
How big do you want to print it. About the only real advantage of drum scanning prints is that you can guarantee that the image will remain perfectly flat, outside of that you probably would be fine with a good scan from any Epson greater than the 4870.
The real advantage of drum scanning lies in scanning film.
Awesome, thanks everyone for the feedback. It looks like since my co-worker has a print, and not a negative that a drum scan is probably not the best way to go. I will try to direct him to some place that has flatbed scanning. He was about to go to Kinkos but I steered him away from that.....
Discussion
8 repliesThanks in advance.
Andy
You only need to scan a photograph at 300 ppi (a bit more if you plan to enlarge it).
My flatbed would scan it to a high PPI, up to 4800 PPI, but there is a big resolution difference between a professional scanner and a consumer flatbed like my Epson 4990. Though in this case perhaps a professional flatbed might be the best solution. The lab I use, Accent Photo in Colorado Springs has a high end professional Fuji flatbed scanner. Be advised that their scan rates will be quite high and I haven't used their scanning services yet so I don't know how good their scan operator is.
Here are some examples to show the difference between a drum scan and a consumer flatbed scan. The film is 4X5 Provia and no sharpening has been applied to either crop.
Full image
Drum scan crop left arrow, 3200 PPI
Epson 4990 scan crop from the same spot and same PPI
Unless the print is of particularly high quality you might not be able to get more detail out of it than 300-600ppi. In other words, you can keep scanning to more resolution, but you you'll just get a bigger file, no additional detail.
Mel-
There are a couple of places in town you can use to have images drum scanned – including Reed Photo and Denver Digital (The Slideprinter).
Drum scanning is very expensive – so I would only recommend it if you plan on making a very large print. You can easily create a 16x20 from 4x5 film using an inexpensive flatbed scanner as mentioned. However, if you want a larger final image, have a smaller negative such as 35mm or medium format, or have very dense shadows on the film, you may consider drum scanning. You want your final file to be anywhere from 240 to 360 dpi at the desired print-size.
If you want a master or archive file you should get a scan between 300MB to 550MB (assuming you have a 4x5 piece of film). Rich and I do our own drum scanning, and we both agree that scanning a 4x5 negative at 3200 spi yields the best results for creating a master/archive file. This yields a file around 550MB (8 bit) and has a native size of approximately 40x50 @ 300 dpi.
How big do you want to print it. About the only real advantage of drum scanning prints is that you can guarantee that the image will remain perfectly flat, outside of that you probably would be fine with a good scan from any Epson greater than the 4870.
The real advantage of drum scanning lies in scanning film.
RichieV
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/
thanks everyone.
andy