What scanner dpi should I use?

Part of it depends on how much free space you have. Part depends on where you draw the line between quality and file size. What you might try doing is scanning the same small portion of a photograph at different resolutions. Then open the files in Photoshop, zoom in and see how much detail is displayed or missing in each. Choose the resolution you feel you would be comfortable with.

Peadge 🙂

"Ryan Atici" wrote in message

I like to scan a few old photos. Unfortunately, I don’t have the negatives of the photos. The photos I want to scan belong to my childhood years.

They

are very old photos as years have taken their toll on them with minor discoloration. As I see it, the only way to safely retain the photos

without

any further damage is to digitally store them in my computer.
What scanner-dpi should I use so that the printout of the digital images looks just as good as the original photo without any grainy look when I

take

the digital images to a professional photo print shop? The largest photo size on re-print I am willing to go up to is 8X10.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

—
Ryan Atici

"Ryan Atici" wrote in
news::

I like to scan a few old photos. Unfortunately, I don’t have the negatives of the photos. The photos I want to scan belong to my childhood years. They are very old photos as years have taken their toll on them with minor discoloration. As I see it, the only way to safely retain the photos without any further damage is to digitally store them in my computer.

What scanner-dpi should I use so that the printout of the digital images looks just as good as the original photo without any grainy look when I take the digital images to a professional photo print shop? The largest photo size on re-print I am willing to go up to is 8X10.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

If you intend to print them minimum 200 and 600 would be better and 1200 better again, Idealy the optical resolution of your scanner is the optimum setting but that might be 1800 but you can half the optumum which in this case would give you 900 but the file sizes get huge and scan time increases. Read your scanner documentation to find it’s optimum resolution

If you only want them on screen 72 or 96 only

—
Youth is wasted on the young!

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:31:44 GMT, Kingdom
scribbled:

"Ryan Atici" wrote in
news::

I like to scan a few old photos. Unfortunately, I don’t have the negatives of the photos. The photos I want to scan belong to my childhood years. They are very old photos as years have taken their toll on them with minor discoloration. As I see it, the only way to safely retain the photos without any further damage is to digitally store them in my computer.

What scanner-dpi should I use so that the printout of the digital images looks just as good as the original photo without any grainy look when I take the digital images to a professional photo print shop? The largest photo size on re-print I am willing to go up to is 8X10.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

If you intend to print them minimum 200 and 600 would be better and 1200 better again, Idealy the optical resolution of your scanner is the optimum setting but that might be 1800 but you can half the optumum which in this case would give you 900 but the file sizes get huge and scan time increases. Read your scanner documentation to find it’s optimum resolution
If you only want them on screen 72 or 96 only

Or he could visit www.scantips.com and avoid all the misinformation he’ll get here.

Ryan Atici wrote:

I like to scan a few old photos. Unfortunately, I don’t have the negatives of the photos. The photos I want to scan belong to my childhood years. They are very old photos as years have taken their toll on them with minor discoloration. As I see it, the only way to safely retain the photos without any further damage is to digitally store them in my computer.
What scanner-dpi should I use so that the printout of the digital images looks just as good as the original photo without any grainy look when I take the digital images to a professional photo print shop? The largest photo size on re-print I am willing to go up to is 8X10.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

About 300 if you entend to print them at the original’s size. As Vovoid said: Visit scantips.com.

Stephan

If you intend to print them minimum 200 and 600 would be better and 1200 better again, Idealy the optical resolution of your scanner is the optimum setting but that might be 1800 but you can half the optumum which in this case would give you 900 but the file sizes get huge and scan time increases. Read your scanner documentation to find it’s optimum resolution

My sole intention is for printing purposes. I have all the hard drive space in the world in my computer. I am not concerned about the digital images taking space on my hard drive at all. I like to have a good quality printout when I get the digital image printed 8X10. The scanner I have "AcerScan 320U Prisa USB". The scanner can only go up to 1600 dpi. Just like I mentioned before, I will take the digital images to professional photo print shop to get them printed to make sure they are printed in best possible way. But the photo printer shop can only do so much unless I provide them a good digital image. So, I just wanna do my part so that they can do theirs.

Some say more dpi doesn’t necessarily mean better printout quality. Some say more than 300 dpi is not necessary to achieve near perfect quality printout without any "graininess".

Should I just say, "better safe than sorry!" and scan every photo with 1600 dpi or 1600 dpi doesn’t provide any better printout quality when compared to 300 dpi?

Thanks again.

—
Ryan Atici

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:51:58 -0500, "Ryan Atici" scribbled:

If you intend to print them minimum 200 and 600 would be better and 1200 better again, Idealy the optical resolution of your scanner is the optimum setting but that might be 1800 but you can half the optumum which in this case would give you 900 but the file sizes get huge and scan time increases. Read your scanner documentation to find it’s optimum resolution

My sole intention is for printing purposes. I have all the hard drive space in the world in my computer. I am not concerned about the digital images taking space on my hard drive at all. I like to have a good quality printout when I get the digital image printed 8X10. The scanner I have "AcerScan 320U Prisa USB". The scanner can only go up to 1600 dpi. Just like I mentioned before, I will take the digital images to professional photo print shop to get them printed to make sure they are printed in best possible way. But the photo printer shop can only do so much unless I provide them a good digital image. So, I just wanna do my part so that they can do theirs.
Some say more dpi doesn’t necessarily mean better printout quality. Some say more than 300 dpi is not necessary to achieve near perfect quality printout without any "graininess".

Should I just say, "better safe than sorry!" and scan every photo with 1600 dpi or 1600 dpi doesn’t provide any better printout quality when compared to 300 dpi?

Here’s an idea, scan the same thing twice, once at 300 and again at 1600, take both to the printer, compare.

"Voivod" wrote in message

..

Here’s an idea, scan the same thing twice, once at 300 and again at 1600, take both to the printer, compare.

That’s a bit misleading. Scanning is one process. Output (printing, in you scenario) is another. The other half of that experiment is the final print size since the same dpi variables apply, though in reverse.

I say, space and time providing, ALWAYS scan at highest resolution.