 Tracey Tomtene |
Scanning 35 mm Negatives I have taken photos on film for a dance studio and told them that I would give them a high resolution disk as they wanted the pictures on file in a digital format. I would like to know if there is a specific size and resolution that the negatives should be scanned in as so that they are able to print the pictures at any size (4 x 6, 5 x 7 and 8 x 10) without me having to scan in each negative 3x?
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Laura Roth |
300 dpi may be overkill but it will definitely be sufficient. It's the standard resolution for publishing, so if they need it for advertising also, that would be a good way to go. Also, you may want to save one copy as a *.tiff with no compression (for maximum information) and then resave it as a *.jpg so that they have a smaller, more universal file format. the double format will only take as much time as hitting the save button again. If they are going on CD, then the file size should not be an issue. Hope that helps.
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doug Nelson |
If the photo on disk is sized to 300 ppi, then it would print well. Your title is "scanning 35mm negatives", so I assume you're asking what resolution to use to scan them. At a minimum, scanning at 2400 ppi will give you an 8 x 12 at 300 ppi. Film scanners commonly used by hobbyists scan at 4,000 and even 5400 pixels per inch. If you are giving the customer a full size printable file, the higher the better. By all means, take Laura's advice and save it as a tiff.
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Tracey Tomtene |
Great! Thanks! My concern is that I have tried scanning negatives at all different resolutions and if I scan to get an 8 x 10 image size, when I try to downsize the image to a 4 x 6 later in Photoshop, I cannot get those exact dimensions without distorting the original size. I have always struggled with this issue where I end up having awkward sizes that do not fit into standard frame sizes so I have to rescan so that I can get the exact dimensions. Any thoughts or comments on this? Thankyou both for your input!
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doug Nelson |
We have to scan something as tiny as a 35mm neg at a very high resolution so that we can stretch it out to common print sizes and still have the digital information a printer needs. As to exact dimensions, the problem we all have is that the dimensions of the 35mm frame are not proportional to common print sizes. For example, a scan at 2400 ppi, when you enter 300 in Image Size (Resample UNchecked) yields an 8 x 12. SO, we have to decide, if we want it 8 inches wide, that something will have to come off of one end or both to make the long dimension 10. OR, if you crop off the ends or end to get exactly what you want, the width will fall somewhat short of 8 inches, but still hopefully fit on the paper. 4 x 6 actually IS proportional to the 35mm neg. You can take the whole scan and, using Image Size as above, enter 6 as the image length, and Photoshop will calculate a width of four, and a resolution of over 300. A res of over 300 does no harm; some printers print their best quality if given a res of 450. You probably won't see the difference, however.
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Laura Roth |
Like Doug said, the proportion on a 35 mm negative is rated to 4 x 6. Mathematically speaking, any way you set the image should be the same proportion... 4/6 = 0.66666667 Thinking in this manner, the picture will come out to an 8 x 12 ratio (also as Doug said) 8/12 = 0.66666667. Long story short: you'd be best off scanning for an 8 x 12 format. Then you have the whole image and when you go into photoshop, you can set your area select tool to a fixed ratio of 8 in x 10 in and crop the part of the picture to 8 x 10. Before cropping, you'd still have all the information, so you could resize it easily to 4 x 6 or you would have the option of cropping to 8 x 10 both with that one scan. If that was confusing, let me know. I may be rambling incoherently.
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