What size do you usually get when getting a drum scan?

When having a drum scan made of your image, what size do you usually

get. The same as the output, one and a half the size of your output,

double the size of your output or even triple the size of the output?

I'm not asking this as a "how to" or anything but rather just feeling

the waters out there.<br>

Another question to pose while on this topic; How do you usually have

the files saved, as a TIFF, PSD, JPEG, RAW or something else?

Considering the amount of $$ it costs for drum scans and also

considering that the lab charges per megabite that's saved onto disk,

I was thinking I could get a better deal by starting to asking the

lab techs to save the files as TIFFs with LZW compression. That way

cutting the size of the file down by a quarter.

Get the outputs in straight TIFF's. TIFF-LZW is usually never 1/4 the size for photos. It might be 3/4's the size. LZW only works well with large areas of tones; which then will compress with no loss. For typical photos; the usage of LZW is not warranted; the compression is not much; plus the open and close time is alot longer; plus some programs wont open LZW. For scans of graphics; LZW can have alot of compression. When we scan stuff for customers; it takes longer to use LZW than for straight TIFF files; unless we know them real well. On several occasions; we have had to FED-EX TIFF files to clients; when their special software wont open TIFF-LZW.......Now we save both TIFF and TIFF-LZW; if a client wants just TIFF-LZW; because we know that it is a good chance we will have to save their rears by FED-EXing a straight TIFF set to them. All this adds to overhead; and is pasted on to customers..

Many labs charge for the megabytes scanned; and not what gets compressed and saved on the disk. Thus if a scan is 150 megs not compressed; and you want a jpeg compressed 1:10; you get charged for the 150meg scan; and get a 15meg jpeg. You are paying for their labor to do the scan; larger scans take more time; and thus cost more money.

Look at WEst Coast Imaging's service for recoomended sizes, and 'the why' behind their own recommendations. In short, scan once for many uses, meaning you should get a maximun scan from teh get go. FOr 35mm this is 50-100megs and 100-200 for larger sizes. If your lab is gonna charge a megabyte fee, you might want to see if their calander still says 1998. The scan price should include getting you a copy on CD. After all, saving the file is a standard practice in scanning, and charging you for it at various levels seems a bit like taxing your patronage.

Kelly, just to niggle, I think Kevin does say lzw would bring file size down to 3/4, if you reread his last sentence.

Mendel; yes I misread his last sentence!. In scans of slides made of posters; the LZW compression can be alot. <BR><BR>Anyway labs ususally have to charge enough to pay for their labor and equipment. If you think it is excessive; try another lab; or buy your own scanner. The cheapest labs sometimes dont use as much care; and not do any corrections; or prescannong to set the levels correctly. If you have consistant work; you may get a cheaper price. All labs have some slack time; waiting a day or two extra may get you a second price break. <BR><BR>Here I dont do the mass scanning a throw away prices; there is little money in it. I tend to do oddball stuff; where one can make a decent buck. (Like slides shot of a wedding in 1963; shot by a Navy photographer with movie film stock. These were all faded away; due to poor choice of film. We had the bride select the hue of her dress; in my corrected versions. These took a huge amount of prescan curves to force what was left of the colors.)<BR><BR>

Chris; I usually do several batch conversion of my scans. The customer gets a full bore Tiff file; some smaller sized ones; and some lightly compressed as JPEGS; which are emailable. Most people do not understand file sizes and resolution; and later will call back and want a smaller file; or emailable sizes one. They want this done for nothing; on a minutes notice. It is far easier to give them several directories; with the 3 or 4 different versions; from the begining; than argue my I cannot instantly FED-EX a CD with smaller versions; in a few seconds. After a dozen of so reworks on a minutes notice; I grew tired of peoples ignorance and insisting that they can handle the "biggest scan we can make". Many times they dont even have Photoshop; or even know whether what amount of RAM they have. Sometimes they dont even know whether their application is MAC or PC based. All this adds to overhead. Several clients send us images in Wordperfect; Word; etc; to print. This adds to the fun too.

So,<br>

Back to my first question, what size are people scanning?<br>

The same as the output, one and a half the size, twice the size of the output or triple even the size of the output?<br>

I shoot MF Panoramic 6x17.

 

If I get my scans done at pcraft.com then I get them scanned at

160MB in Adobe RGB color space ($65 per scan). These scans

are ready to drop into photoshop, resize, sharpen and print.

 

If I get my scans done at West Coast Imaging then I get them

done at 200MB in Ekta RGB color space ($50 per scan). These

scans are scanned dark to retain the highlights. You then have to

use curves to bring out your shadow detail. These scans are A

LOT more work but you will get a ton more info in your shadows.

 

I get my images printed on a lightjet. This printer can rez up

images to make low rez photos look really sharp. So with these

scans I can go up to 24"x64" with no problem. I build my files at

150DPI at final print size.

 

If you're printing on an epson then you're going to want to have

your files at 300 DPI at final print size.

 

So it really maters how you will be printing them that will dictate

your scan size.

 

I agree that you should scan your image once, so scan it big.

Then down size the scan for smaller prints.<div></div>

The size of drum scan you should get is the lesser of the size you really need and the

size you can actually get from your original. For example, a fine grained 35mm slide

will stand a 60MB scan without showing excessive grain. A 75MB scan from a fine

grained 6x7 chrome on the other hand should show no grain aliasing at all, and in

many cases you can even get a 300MB scan from a 6x7.

 

Now, a 60-75MB scan is good enough for a tabloid sized publication with full bleed,

printed on an offset press with 150 line screen. On the other hand, the same 60-

75MB file is good enough for a 20x30 output on a high quality photo printer like the

Lightjet or Epson 9600.

 

You should consider that excessively large scans can have downsides as well.

Sampling down a 300MB file to 50MB one can in some cases smooth over details that

you may like to keep. If you are concerned about future use, note that output devices

tend to get better and better at scaling files and can get away with smaller and

smaller files.

 

Given the above, I would say 60-75MB is a good number to aim for under most

circumstances. You can go for a 150, or 300MB scan only if you are shooting MF and

need really large prints. Also, negatives will need smaller scans than chromes because

of the grain aliasing.