resizing/stock photography

[nichols]

Hi. About two months ago I was asked to join a stock photography

site. Yay! Which I was totally excited about right away. However,

owning just a film slr, I've run into some problems. Each picture is

supposed to be 300 dpi. Which, if I scan my 4x6s at that, I end up

with around 1300 x 1700 pixels. This gives me what is classified as a

medium sized photo on stock sites and is not very desirable for

clients. Many clients are buying at anywhere from 3500-5000 pixels.

Now, I could blow each one of my photos up to 8 x 10....which still

isn't that close to 3500/5000 pixels. I've tried resizing in

Photoshop CS to 3000, and it looks somewhat okay, but it can be very

messy pixel wise. I was wondering if there is a different/good way of

getting my film shots to that level, or am I just going to have to

bite the bullet and go digital(which at this point, I can't really

afford).

thanks, chris

[g_q]

If you are scanning a photo, be careful with the type of paper surface that you use because if it is textured it may give you a less than desirable scan. Scanning a clean glossy is preferable to scanning a satin or lustre textured print. I would start with the largest print size that you are able to scan and choose the highest optical DPI for the scan.

 

If at all possible try to scan the original film or the transparency using a high end scanner at a minimum of 3600 DPI optical.

 

Either way you can use Photoshop with a plug-in called GenuineFractals PrintPro http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php?page=gf

to do the scaling up. I've used it with great results.

 

Hope that helps.

GQ

[maureen_m]

Why not just scan the 4x6 prints at a much higher resolution?

[david_henderson]

As implied above 300dpi is an output (printing from your scans) desirable resolution not a useful scanning resolution unless you want the eventual print to be the same size as the one you started with. You will get a far higher resolution (more detail) scan if you scan the negative than a 6x4 print that chances are was only printed at 300dpi or thereabouts anyway. However this can't be done on every scanner, and even those flatbed scanners with film attachments aren't wonderful at scanning 35mm film for big enalrgements. Mostly people use a dedicated film scanner for this sort of thing, scan at 4000ppi which explains where your 5000/3500 pixels from 35mm comes from. Realistically its unlikely you're going to get a good (saleable) quality scan of this sort of size from scanning a print of any size made from 35mm.

 

In my experience, Libraries pretty much always want to scan themselves because they want to control the quality. This isn't so they look great on screen of course since that objective can be satisfied from quite a small scan; it is so that the buyer will get a good result if they buy a scan and need to use it large, need to make a big crop and so on. If they allow their photographers to scan on a range of device types and to a host of different standards, then it must be difficult for them to control the quality of what they sell.

[qtluong]

Yay ? What kind of stock agency is that, which accepts scans from prints ? I also hope they don't offer RF licenses for $10 !

Buy a 4000dpi scanner (they can now be had for $500) and scan your

original film ! There is a world of difference between film scans and second generation scans. Note that if you want a file of that size with digital capture, prices of cameras start at $8,000 (1Ds mark II), although a Kodak SLR n/c would get you very close in some circumstances at half that price.

<a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com/">Terra Galleria Stock Photography</a>

[basscheffers]

And shoot slides if you are really interested in selling!

[steven_muller]

RF stock sites SUCK