high res. scans

[pavel_toman]

Hi all,

I had 7 rolls of 120 slide film scanned at high resolution and paid $16 per

each. When I opened these images in my cs2 and checked image size it read

approximately 28in x 35in dimension at 72 resolution.

Which is what normally comes out of my 30D. Now, these scans were done on a

drum scanner...or were supposed to be done on one. Also the scan quality

wasn't quite as stunning as original 67 slides - highlights a little blown

out, sharpness suffered some...

My question is: is there a chance these "scans" were actually done with a

digital camera via some sort of slide duplicator or is the above described

resolution really considered High res. done on a drum scan.

Just trying to figure out whether I got fooled and ripped off or where I may

be wrong.

Thank you, Pavel

[ellis_vener_photography]

high resolution does not automatically equal high quality and I thinkl you got hosed on the

high resolution thingas well. Two reasons:

 

No one does drum scans for $16.00 per scan, there is just too much labor involved.

 

And they are pretty small files too. 28x35 inches @ 72ppi = 2016 x 2520 pixels = 6.72 x

8.4 inches at 300ppi. That is really low resolution.

 

I'd demand my money back.

[mendel_leisk]

Doing the math:

 

35 x72 = 2520

 

And:

 

28 x 72 = 2016

 

Meaning your images are around 2520 pixels by 2016 pixels. It doesn't look like a very high res scan for 120 format.

 

If you divide the horizontal dimension in inches by 2520, and you'll be in the ballpark for the pixels per inch they scanned at.

 

BTW: it's a lot simpler to understand if you forget about the printed inches and dpi. Just look at the pixel dimensions of your image.

 

As to "sharpness suffered", maybe they are giving you unsharpened. Which is a good practice, you can always post sharpen, but can't undo what's been done.

 

What file format are they? And are they 8 bit or 16 bit?

[pavel_toman]

they are 8 bit file format.

and yes, there is quite a bit of tweaking to do on them.

My intention is to stich some panoramas and then print in 16 x 30 inch sizes.

I'm just wandering how much quality loss will these images suffer by the time I'm done with them.

[nigel d]

My quick and dirty math indicates that the scans were done at 900-1000 dpi. Certainly not a high resolution scan. Using a Nikon CS 9000 you would be able to scan at 4000dpi. If it were me, I would be having a very angry conversation at this point.

[helenbach]

I hope that you paid $16 per roll, not $16 per scan.

[anthony_r]

You got hosed. I would get scans of 125 mb each for the size you want to go. Not going to

be cheap though - no way around that.