Getting scans from a photo lab vs film scanner

[kent_morris]

Hi -

 

I recently purchased a photo printer, but now have run into an

interesting situation. The photo lab I usually go to charges around

$9.00 for a cd of images, so I assumed they would be decent scans

and could use those to print from. But the scans from the photo lab

are so so (big enough for 4x6 at best). To get high quality JPEGs

cost extra, the cost depending on the scan resolution. Is this

common? If so, how do you all get good scans without 1) spending a

ton of money on scanning or 2) running back and forth to the photo

lab several times and still spending bunches of $$. Do you pretty

much need your own scanner or digital camera to make it worth having

a photo printer? I was thinking that I could just get a roll of

film scanned to a cd and it would be simple, but apparently it is

not quite that simple if i want to print anything bigger than 4x6.

Thanks for any input or advice.

 

Kent

[john_shriver]

High-resolution scanning is time consuming. The scanners are getting faster, but there are no miracles. You can pay for someone else's (hopefully) skilled time, or you can buy a scanner and use your own time. (Neither is a perfect solution!)

 

At one time the scanners Kodak used to make Photo CD's were a keen combination of resolution, performance, and speed. This made Photo CD's a good buy at the time. But they are now dated in terms of resolution, and Kodak isn't designing a replacement. (The hardware wasn't selling well.)

 

The 4x6 quality CD scans from the lab are probably from a Fuji Frontier minilab, which is cleverly optimized for really fast scans at just enough resolution for 1200 by 1800 pixels. (Their printer is 300 pixels/inch.)

 

Think of the $9 CD as proofs.

[paul_bauer2]

Kent

I am in the same situation you are. I'be tried having slides scanned at various labs and the only one that was satifactory cost $10.00 per slide. You can guess how long that lasted. For the last few months I have been considering a scanner; film or flatbed. I had a scan done a slide on an Epson 3200 flatbead and then emailed it to a friend that is quite well versed in digital work. He said the scan was excellent. It appears that the newer scanners with digital ice are givng very good scans. My research concluded I've ordered the Epson 4870 and will follow up with an Epson Stylus 4000 or 2200 printer. I too found out it is not as simple as having a roll of film scanned; that is without putting out many $. Paul

[robert_martin5]

High resolution scans at a lab are expensive. I had a medium format negative scanned on a drum scanner and got a 200 MB TIF file at a cost of $40 for one image. I had the image printed at 30 inches by 40 inches, so the high resolution scan was required. If you want high resolutions scans, get a dedicated film scanner not a flatbed scanner. The Epson 3200 and 4870 scanners have an equivalent resolution of less than 2000 dpi even though they output 3200 dpi and 4800 dpi images. The lens systems in these scanners is not capable of supporting the 3200 dpi and 4800 dpi outputs. You basically get a high dpi output of a fuzzy image, but if this meets your requirements they are cheaper than film scanners.

[gordonr]

Find a lab with a Sony UY series 35mm Film Scanner, and ask them to use the high resolution setting. These can scan 1100dpi in 6 sec, and 2200dpi in 9 sec. This may cost slightly more, but the largest cost is film handling time, not scanning time.

 

Mine was less than $1 for a cut strip of 4 negatives (better if the whole roll is uncut). This is not as high quality as the top-end scanners, but certainly adequate for most purposes.

[ribook]

Kent,</p>I feel your pain. I've been through three professional labs, first trying to find the one that would crop and print, etc., and provide me with the quality of print I was seeking (acknowledging my own responsibility for the quality of exposed film I was giving them to work with). Then I started having things scanned, and as you say, the prices for high resolution scans are quite high, not to mention the hassle of going back and forth to the lab, and with the lab I was using, waiting a full week for each order. I've had the local grocery's one-hour photo lab scan my negatives to CD, and truth be told, in many ways the prints and digital files I was getting from the grocery store was making the professional labs look pretty bad. What to do? What to do? </p>After much thought and research (into both what I'd been doing and what changes I might make) I decided to buy a Canon FS4000US scanner (great deal at Adorama right now) and a Canon i960 printer. I've had the scanner just over a week and I'm very happy with my decision. Though it's slow (like all the reviews say), it does a great job with color negatives at 4000dpi. The dust removal works very well. And with a little tweaking in Photoshop LE, which is packaged with the scanner, 8.5" x 11" prints on the i960 are much closer to what I've been looking for than what I've been getting from the labs. In fact, some of them are spectacular. And I have control over it. I can crop and adjust exactly as I want to, print whatever size I want, etc. YES! it's time consuming, but I'm enjoying being more involved in this end of the process than I've been since I was in highschool in the '70s and had access to a black-and-white darkroom.</p>If you think you'd have the time to do your own scanning/postprocessing/printing, I encourage you to look into what's out there in the way of scanners. The Canon is a great deal right now, though there are others as well. Check it out. -Russ

[ribook]

Here's an example of a scan that was then cropped quite a bit. (No guarantees I've sized this right for web display.) -Russ<div></div>

[kent_morris]

I guess I will be saving my dollars to buy a film scanner. In some ways it would be easier to just let the lab do everything, but seems like alot of the time they don't get it quite right. When they do it's great. At least if I mess it up, it's my fault and I know it. I think the darkroom is fun, and with the digital set up i don't have to worry about chemicals that go bad or leaving stuff out if i have to walk away to do something else. anyway, thanks for all the insight.

 

km

[nghi_hoang]

Kent,

 

You should get a dedicated film scanner, like a Canon FS4000US or Minolta 5400. I have the FS4000US and love it. I paid $650 for it. In about a few months, it paid for itself. I have had it for almost a year and don't even want to think about the cost of getting my scans done at a pro lab.

 

Russ,

 

My FS4000US on a SCSI card scans a frame at 4000dpi @ 64bits about a bit over a minute. I sometimes use multiple passes for a frame. Just did one with 3 passes now. Under 5 minutes. If you are using USB, you might want to check into getting a SCSI card. I got mine from eBay for $8.00+3.95SH.

 

-Nghi

[ribook]

Nghi,</p>Wow! That's fast. It's taking me upwards of 9 minutes per scan at 4000 dpi (24 bit) with dust removal. I scanned about 40 frames yesterday and it took forever. I'm not complaining mind you, as I continue to beleive that the result is worth the time, but I'm likely to take your advice and look into the SCSI route. Thanks for the information. -Russ