Drug store scan surprise

[charles_stobbs3]

<p>Hi Bill,<br>

I am not sure if you have concluded that both scans are the same resolution but the jpeg file was then compressed as usual or that the tiff file was scanned at a higher resolution as well as being left uncompressed. FWIF I think the "t" in tiff means that the scan is tagged with some information as well which obviously makes the file bigger.</p>

[orourke]

<p>Ok. Today I stopped by the location that has been producing my scans. The machine they have is a Fuji Frontier 340. The employees I worked with the other day were not in so I thought it would be pointless to cover old ground with today's staff.<br>

Then I got online. The scans I've gotten to date have maxed out about 1800 on the long end. From what I was able to glean from the web, the 340 is capable of producing scans over 3000 on the long end as a standard, not "optional" feature.<br>

There is another Walgreens in my area so I called them. I asked if they had the same equipment the other store used and was told yes, all the stores use the same machine. I reviewed my story with the manager of the photo department, who boasted of a 13 year tenure with the company. She informed me that they are not allowed to make any adjustments to the machine or software since doing so would void their service agreement with Fuji.<br>

So, in short, they are using machines that are capable of producing scans of roughly twice the resolution they currently produce, and because of some agreement between corporate and Fuji, they don't.<br>

I doubt that calling corporate will change anything but I'm almost tempted to try. Is it possible that in today's world of retail they are simply ignoring a feature/benefit that has the potential of boosting their profit center in photo? Are they aware there is an opportunity to upsell their customers? Clearly they seem to at least be underutilizing what probably is the most important tool in that department.</p>

[orourke]

<p>Tim,<br>

Thanks for the links. I may print the 'how to' post and bring it with me the next time I have negs to scan, being careful to inform them of today's conversation with the other store's photo mangager regarding the potential of voiding their service agreement. What could possibly go wrong?</p>

[orourke]

<p>Charles,<br>

Thank you for your input !</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>Is it possible that in today's world of retail they are simply ignoring a feature/benefit that has the potential of boosting their profit center in photo? Are they aware there is an opportunity to upsell their customers?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm guessing an "upsell" has already been settled on. Its called a "premium disc". Someone of your discerning sophistication are not within the targeted market, namely, casual camera users who go for specs such as "premium" rather than more technical and useful parameters.</p>

[orourke]

<blockquote>

<p>" I'm guessing an "upsell" has already been settled on. Its called a "premium disc". "</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not complaining but if they continue giving me premium discs at no extra charge they may want to revisit their upsell strategy training.</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>if they continue giving me premium discs at no extra charge they may want to revisit their upsell strategy training.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Its not so much the strategy that will be visited upon by upper management. Its the staff not implementing it. Poke around too much and that may actually happen. While local drop off has its benefits, have you considered shipping out for scans to get the best results?</p>

[orourke]

<p>John,</p>

<p>Yes, I'll probably ship some to a pro lab eventually. Since I'm not shooting alot of new stuff right now I've been focusing on working with old negatives to get a feel for digital post. I'm pretty new at this. I'm still in the inventory stage, going through old boxes, selecting negative strips to scan to see if they merit taking them any further. When I assemble enough keepers I'll send them out for more proper achiving. Until then, I'm all about close, fast and cheap.</p>

 

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Bill, have you tried increasing resolution on your Walgreens scans from 1800 pixels on the long end to 3000 in Photoshop?</p>

<p>I've seen some pretty impressive results doubling the resolution of my 3000x2000 DSLR Raws in Photoshop to where adding a bit of sharpening, clarity and luminance smoothing in Adobe Camera Raw reduces uprez artifacts to where they're barely noticeable.</p>

<p>Don't know if you have Photoshop, but see if you can do this in your image editor of choice. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I reviewed my story with the manager of the photo department, who boasted of a 13 year tenure with the company. She informed me that they are not allowed to make any adjustments to the machine or software since doing so would void their service agreement with Fuji.<br>

<br />So, in short, they are using machines that are capable of producing scans of roughly twice the resolution they currently produce, and because of some agreement between corporate and Fuji, they don't.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>And you wonder why some folks say film is dead. What a waste of technology.</p>

<p>I wouldn't put too much credence into that Walgreen manager's years of experience. About 5 years ago I called a Walgreens regional manager to complain about the purple color cast on their prints and asked them to recalibrate so I could use DryCreekPhoto.com profile to get decent color matching and she told me those machines can't be calibrated or profiled. </p>

<p>The new Walgreens that just opened up in my town (different regional manager) caters more to digital camera output to where I get spot on color matches just handing them an sRGB written image except they use a Noritsu. But they also do film as well, but never tried them out and asked for higher resolution.</p>

[orourke]

<p>Tim,<br>

I don't have photshop, yet. I'm using Fastone and paint.net for now. Is uprezing the same as resizing up, and then sharpening? If so, is there a difference sharpening that way as opposed to simply sharpening at 1800? I haven't tried resizing up, unless it was a crop that I wanted to make larger for posting. When I clone out dust specs or add 'catch light' to someones eyes I magnify the image as much as I can to work on it, but I wasn't aware I could add apparent (or actual) resolution other than by sharpening or adding contrast.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>You're not really adding any extra data resizing up (up-rezing).</p>

<p>What you are doing is counteracting through sharpening techniques the softening to edge detail that may arise letting a printer algorithm up-rez for a print enlargement which will require more resolution. And from the looks of the way the Fuji scanner/printer applies the same weird looking sharpening technique, you may get better results up-rezing the image yourself in order to fix softening artifacts the way you want.</p>

<p>Not sure. It may not be worth it. You can always take your scans to another printer that may do a better job. You'll have to test by printing an 8x10 of the 1800 rez image.</p>

[jason_ganz]

<p>I wish the CVS's near me would do that.</p>

<p>They have KODAK machines, and their standard is 4x6 @ 300dpi. Thus all you get are 1200x1800 pixel shots, and they're JPG. I have asked on multiple occasions about high-res, to which their rebuttal is "who'd want that? If you want High-res, shoot digital!". I'm sorry, but when I shoot film, I'm not asking for 16-bit TIFF files, but I'd like to see a bit less compression in my shots. (Same way as I am with music, I don't like MP3s, but i LOVE vinyl). It's disgusting when all I can get is a low-res shot on a "basic CD".</p>

<p>Jason</p>