Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Roger"
<rsmith02@...> wrote:
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "steveabrink"
> <steveabrink@> wrote:
> >
> > 4X5 Black and White Negatives can hold a tremendous amount of 
> > information --on the order of 2000+ ppi optical to capture all the 
> > potential data. 
> 
> Isn't that true for any film and why we have 4000dpi desktop scanners
> for 35mm?
> 
> I'll agree that a 16 bit 4000dpi scan of 4x5 inch film is ridiculously
> large.
>
Whatever "school of thought" one belongs to it is never a good idea to
scan beyond the optical scan capabilities of what ever scanner you are
using - many of the maximum settings for flatbed scanners involve
interpolated information which can degrade the quality of your image -
whether you do use the maximum optical scanning capabilities of your
scanner - should depend more upon the intended final use for the image
- ie what size(s) of  output you are considering  - at this point it
is the quality of the optics of your scanner that will become
important - and there is a difference - especially in flatbed scanners
used for 4 x 5 negatives  - a consumer grade scanner that offers a lot
of dpi - with poor optics will yield a lot of pixels and overall poor
image quality -  for 4x5 on a good scanner 16 bit at 1200 dpi will be
more than enough resolution for a very very large print - 600 dpi will
probably be more than enough for a 16 x 20 in most cases.