Digital BW, The Print

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Michael <michael3442@...> wrote:

>
>
> Thanks, Eric. What caught my attention was the last paragraph & sentence on
> this page:
> http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%204870/page_7.htm
>
> Now with all the skill and equipment owned by folks who read this, maybe
> someone could do an independent test using their high-end equipment and post
> the results. In other words, can you scan 35mm film at higher than 3200 dpi
> and get a better file or does the grain somehow appear accentuated. There's
> nothing like an actual file to look at rather than all our varying theories.
> Anyone up for this?
>
> Michael K
>
>  _
>

No, it's not worth the effort.  Each film/developer/technique combo and
scanner type and technique will vary the results.  For instance, with grainy
film wet-mounting the film on my Canon 9950F flatbed lead to a huge increase
in quality, whereas doing the same thing with my Screen Cezanne gives no
visual difference.  In addition, going above 2400 spi with my Canon lead to
no increase in quality, whereas with the Cezanne and super fine-grained
film, I see increased quality up to 6000 spi.   This variability means that
if you want the best quality, then you have to run your own tests with your
own equipment, materials and techniques. They aren't hard to do, and they're
much more valuable than any third party tests, especially since you can
compare prints at your final output size, which is by far the most important
thing.  In my case, while I can see increased quality moving from 4000 spi
(samples per inch) to 6000 (samples per inch) in some cases, these
differences do not show up at my max print size for that format.  Thus
scanning at the higher resolution is a waste of time and storage space in my
case.  "But you might want to print bigger!"  While some might, I won't.  I
would never print a 35mm negative bigger than full frame on an 11x14 sheet
of paper, and more often I use an 8x10 sheet with generous borders.  Having
a file big enough to make 20x24s just doesn't make sense for me.  It might
for you.


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