35mm Film Scanning

wishbone_17 · Oct 17, 2008

I just got back some Portra NC negatives that I shot a few months ago.

My question pertains to scanning them at the best quality I can. I have an Epson Perfection 2480 Photo flatbed scanner. I know it is not the best scanner but I primarily use it for non photography uses, or for making digital contact sheets.

My question is, what is the best way to go about scanning them? At what resolution should I scan them? My scanner goes all the way to 12000 but I don't think I need it that high. My goal would be ultimately to have these blown up to an 11x14 to fit in a portfolio but I think a 5x7 would suffice for now. If I need them any bigger I would get them drum scanned. My reasoning behind a 5x7 is to be able to see them in a good enough quality to "check" and see if they are worth becoming a part of my portfolio.

One more thing, what format should I scan them into? My scanner can do JPEG and TIFF, and PCT(not worth it I think), and maybe one more. I know that JPEG is lossy and TIFF is uncompressed so I thought that TIFF would be the choice but wasn't sure.

Any help would be appreciated.

djacobox372 · Oct 20, 2008

Actually your scanner has a maximum optical resolution of 2400dpi, and that's what I would recommend scanning at.

wishbone_17 · Oct 22, 2008

Actually I am looking at my options right now and it gives me the option to scan at 12800 dpi. Not sure if it will scan that high (never tried) but thanks for the help anyway.

monkeykoder · Oct 22, 2008

Options like this usually use some form of interpolation to give resolution like that. What this means is it is scanning at 2400dpi and using some sort of formula for calculating what the pixels in between should look like. This will often make an image look softer.

djacobox372 · Oct 22, 2008

wishbone_17 said:
Actually I am looking at my options right now and it gives me the option to scan at 12800 dpi. Not sure if it will scan that high (never tried) but thanks for the help anyway.

I said "optical resolution" not software interpolated resolution.

Typically your best results are achieved at the native resolution of the scanner which in your case is 2400dpi--it's not that hard to find out, just google the technical specs.