How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum ability?

[Rich Hollenbeck]

I have a VERY old family photo that I would like to touch-up in Photoshop.
In order to do that, I'd like to scan it the maximum resoultion. I can
always reduce the resolution later if necessary. I haven't been able to
scan it at anything higher than 420 dpi. Every time I try to go higher the
scanner does its thing but when it is finished no image is produced.

Hardware:
Epson Perfection 4490 with Digital ICE technology
Sony VAIO Windows XP Home Edition machine
512 MB total physical memory
197.98 MB available physical memory
1.57 GB total virtual memory
and 1.10 GB available virtual memory

The original image is about 4''x6'' and it is in sepia, or brownish and
white.

How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum ability?

 

[CSM1]

I have a VERY old family photo that I would like to touch-up in Photoshop.
In order to do that, I'd like to scan it the maximum resoultion. I can
always reduce the resolution later if necessary. I haven't been able to
scan it at anything higher than 420 dpi. Every time I try to go higher the
scanner does its thing but when it is finished no image is produced.

Hardware:
Epson Perfection 4490 with Digital ICE technology
Sony VAIO Windows XP Home Edition machine
512 MB total physical memory
197.98 MB available physical memory
1.57 GB total virtual memory
and 1.10 GB available virtual memory

The original image is about 4''x6'' and it is in sepia, or brownish and
white.

How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum ability?

How much free Hard space do you have on your computer?

Turn off Digital ICE and try it again.
Digital ICE takes a lot of computer resources.

You are successful at 420 dpi so lets see how much memory and/or hard drive
space is used.

4 inches times 420 dpi = 1680 pixels
6 inches times 420 dpi = 2520 pixels

1680 times 2520 = 4,233,600 pixels

or about 4.23 Megapixels
Color images requires three times the memory so, 4,233,600 times 3 =
12,700,800 bytes.

You are creating a 12.7 Megabyte image from that 4 x 6 photo scanned at 420
dpi.

It takes maybe twice the hard drive space as the final file, so you would
need at least 25.4 megabytes of free space on your hard drive.

I don't know how much more is required to support Digital ICE, but I would
think two to three times that amount of space.

 

[-]

Are you sure you have your output parameters set correctly? I am guessing
you might have a mismatch something and it is creating an uneccessarily huge
file. Are you scanning at the original image size at 420 dpi or are you
trying to also upsize it at the same time? Lots of people get confused
about this and can get into problems. BTW, you probably aren't going to get
much more true resolution out of the file by scanning higher than 300 dpi
when you are scanning a printed photo. A very old original photo probably
just doesn't have the inherent resolution to justify the higher scanning
resolution.

Doug

 

[Rich Hollenbeck]

----- Original Message -----
From: " -" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum
ability?

Are you sure you have your output parameters set correctly? I am guessing
you might have a mismatch something and it is creating an uneccessarily
huge file. Are you scanning at the original image size at 420 dpi or are
you trying to also upsize it at the same time? Lots of people get
confused about this and can get into problems.

I'm not sure. I think my settings are at 100%

BTW, you probably aren't going to get much more true resolution out of the
file by scanning higher than 300 dpi when you are scanning a printed photo.
A very old original photo probably just doesn't have the inherent
resolution to justify the higher scanning resolution.

Yes, I do realize that no matter how much resolution I throw on it I won't
get
it to look any better than the original. But I want enough resolution to
make subtle touch-ups in PhotoShop or MS-Photo Editor easier. Maybe if I
understood PhotoShop better
this wouldn't be necessary. I've been trying to clean it up in Microsoft's
Photo Editor using the smudge tool. I thought it might be easier if I had a
little more resolution.

Thanks Doug!


Rich Hollenbeck

 

[CSM1]

----- Original Message -----
From: " -" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum
ability?



I'm not sure. I think my settings are at 100%



Yes, I do realize that no matter how much resolution I throw on it I won't
get
it to look any better than the original. But I want enough resolution to
make subtle touch-ups in PhotoShop or MS-Photo Editor easier. Maybe if I
understood PhotoShop better
this wouldn't be necessary. I've been trying to clean it up in
Microsoft's
Photo Editor using the smudge tool. I thought it might be easier if I had
a
little more resolution.

Thanks Doug!


Rich Hollenbeck

More resolution does give you a larger image to work with. But there is a
practical limit of 2x or 3x the original print size.

Of course there is a limit on your computer resources also.

In Photoshop. No other editor is as good Photoshop is the standard which
other measure themselves by..
For cleanup of old photographs,
Levels (Enhance>Adjust Brightness/Contrast>Levels) (Ctrl-L) is very good for
getting the dynamic range to its max.
For flaws in the photograph, the clone tool (rubber stamp) is unbeatable.

Read in the Photoshop help about those tools.

 

[Raphael Bustin]

I have a VERY old family photo that I would like to touch-up in Photoshop.
In order to do that, I'd like to scan it the maximum resoultion. I can
always reduce the resolution later if necessary. I haven't been able to
scan it at anything higher than 420 dpi. Every time I try to go higher the
scanner does its thing but when it is finished no image is produced.

Hardware:
Epson Perfection 4490 with Digital ICE technology
Sony VAIO Windows XP Home Edition machine
512 MB total physical memory
197.98 MB available physical memory
1.57 GB total virtual memory
and 1.10 GB available virtual memory

The original image is about 4''x6'' and it is in sepia, or brownish and
white.

How can I get the dpi up there to the my scanner's maximum ability?

There's really not much point to scanning photographs
at much beyond 300 dpi. They need to be exceptionally
sharp and well-printed to warrant more than that.

As for image size. Even at 600 dpi, a scan of a 4x6"
print will be 2400 x 3600 pixels. That's 8.64 million pixels,
which is a TIFF of around 26 million pixels.

From your description above, I see no reason why that
might fail on your machine. You have enough memory.

Though you didn't mention how much free space is
left on your hard drive, it's rare that that by itself would
be your problem.

Where exactly is the scan failing and what, if any,
error messages appear? Which application is
failing? The scanner driver? The image editor?

Do you get an image file at all? Or do you get a file
that's empty (ie., all-white or all-black)?

Are you using the Epson driver in standalone mode or
by TWAIN or WIA?

If you're scanning with DICE, be aware that the
Epson driver will make two passes over the
original, and may **seeem** to be misbehaving
during the scan.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Rich Hollenbeck]

Though you didn't mention how much free space is
left on your hard drive, it's rare that that by itself would
be your problem.

Looks like I'm about 80% full with 3.16GB hard drive available.

Where exactly is the scan failing and what, if any,
error messages appear? Which application is
failing? The scanner driver? The image editor?

Do you get an image file at all? Or do you get a file
that's empty (ie., all-white or all-black)?

Anything above 720 won't produce an image at all, unless I'm scanning a
negative or a slide which is very small. In those cases I can go even
higher than 1200 dpi and get a very large image from a negative or a slide.

Are you using the Epson driver in standalone mode or
by TWAIN or WIA?

I didn't know anything about standalone mode. I thought all scanner drivers
always used TWAIN. And I don't have any idea what WIA means. I guess I
have a lot to learn about scanning.

If you're scanning with DICE, be aware that the
Epson driver will make two passes over the
original, and may **seeem** to be misbehaving
during the scan.

I can only use ICE on the transparencies like slides and negatives. When
scanning documents or photos in reflective mode, the option to use ICE goes
away. But yes, I did notice the second pass and found that odd, but I
didn't suspect a malfunction. I just figured that's the way ICE works.

Thank you for your insightful comments. Now I have something to go study.

 

[Rich Hollenbeck]

More resolution does give you a larger image to work with. But there is a
practical limit of 2x or 3x the original print size.

Of course there is a limit on your computer resources also.

In Photoshop. No other editor is as good Photoshop is the standard which
other measure themselves by..
For cleanup of old photographs,
Levels (Enhance>Adjust Brightness/Contrast>Levels) (Ctrl-L) is very good
for getting the dynamic range to its max.
For flaws in the photograph, the clone tool (rubber stamp) is unbeatable.

Read in the Photoshop help about those tools.

Thank you! I'll do that and learn.

 

[Raphael Bustin]

I didn't know anything about standalone mode. I thought all scanner drivers
always used TWAIN. And I don't have any idea what WIA means. I guess I
have a lot to learn about scanning.

TWAIN is/was a standard for "hosting" scanner applications
(drivers) from within an image browser or editor. WIA is
simply Microsoft's "update" of TWAIN.

But in any case, most scanner drivers (including Epson's)
will work standalone. Meaning that they'll drive the scanner
and produce a *file* at the end of the process.

In TWAIN, there's no file (that you can see.) In that
situation, the scan image is magically "imported"
into your image editor's workspace.

With big files, I prefer to use a standalone scanner app.
I no longer use TWAIN or WIA for anything.

I can only use ICE on the transparencies like slides and negatives. When
scanning documents or photos in reflective mode, the option to use ICE goes
away. But yes, I did notice the second pass and found that odd, but I
didn't suspect a malfunction. I just figured that's the way ICE works.

ICE on my Nikon (film) scanner doesn't use a second
pass. I was rather surprised at the Epson approach,
and the first time I saw it I was *sure* the scanner was
screwing up.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com