I do my own scanning. I have two film scanners (Minolta Scan Dual II and Nikon Coolscan IV ED), both in the 3000 ppi class, for 35mm work. I've used 4000 and 5400 ppi film scanners ... there are gains, particularly with respect to grain aliasing, but I found the improvements insignificant for my print needs (up to 13x19 inch).
Like with all 35mm film, enlargement to more than 16x is iffy at best. A full 35mm frame scanned at 2900 ppi and printed at 220 ppi nets a 12.5x18.7 inch image area, generally about as big as I'd want to make a 35mm film image print. The output density is a little low for exhibition quality prints, but how good it looks depends on your skill in processing and printing it. If you go to 4000 ppi scan density, the output density at that size goes up to about 300 ppi, often considered the standard for film image prints. Most of my 35mm film image prints I make to A3 paper at about 10x15 inch image area, which nets an output density of 260 ppi with a 2900 ppi scan. This overall looks quite good. Godfrey On Sep 18, 2007, at 7:10 AM, Rebekah wrote: > I'm going to send away a few slides and some film for scanning. > What's the best resolution out there that I should be looking for? I > see 3000dpi and 4000dpi, is there a larger number that I'm likely to > find? If I have a good, sharp photograph scanned at 4000dpi, how big > can I make it before it starts to look bad? Thanks in advance guys :) > > P.S. Does anyone personally recommend any scanning companies that you > send your film to or do you all just have your own scanners...? -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
