Digital BW, The Print

On 04/01/2008 Gary Weaver wrote:
> I'm still partially wedded to the 90's notion that you scan for the 
> final output. That's a math thing.

Not the best way, because CCD scanners work best at their optical 
resolution. Any resampling/resizing is better done in PS, which has more 
sophisticated interpolation.

> We usually forget that and just scan high (not weed).
> 
> 14-15mb to 25mb of RGB data is what I look for to feed my editor from 
> 35mm film. I make more data if I need to do heavy manipulation.
> 
> If the epson does hi-bit, a hi-bit at lower res might be better?? 
> everything depends on your intended output(vision).

If you are wanting quality
- scan to 16bit TIFF at optical res in Adobe 1998 RGB or better
- edit curves, levels, colour correct, do any other post prod possible in 
16 bit
- save that file as a master post-produced TIFF or PSD, in 8 bit if you 
must. Do not sharpen it.
- use that file for producing smaller/larger copies as wanted via 
interpolation, in whatever colour space you need for web or printing, 
reduced to 8 bit etc, JPEG or whatever, sharpened as necessary for the 
output size and medium (print needs more than screen).

> One little game I play is to make a file for my print. If it goes 
> straight though the driver without reformatting, I feel I did it 
> right.

What you want to try and avoid is interpolation up or down in either the 
scanner driver or printer driver, because they are usually lousy at it. 
The workflow above uses PS for interpolation, but printing interpolation 
can equally be done in Qimage - which is very good at it, and applies 
appropriate sharpening at the same time. I am also a fan of Vuescan from 
www.hamrick.com (shareware) which generally beats the pants off OE scanner 
software once you learn your way around it, and has better interpolation 
if you really must resample at the scanning stage.

-- 
Regards

Tony Sleep
http://tonysleep.co.uk