If I have a choice, should I scan negative or photo?

[Best]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

Thanks.

 

[Alan Smithee]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

Thanks.

 

[Alan Smithee]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

Thanks.

Sorry about the first post. My computer is so overclocked these days the
Reply and Send buttons get pressed at the same time sometimes...

Photos at 100% 300 DPI. How big do you want to print the photos? This
determines resolution. Negatives always contain more detail. Some people
scan their good negatives at the highest setting on the scanner and save
them uncompressed, and then archive them to DVD. If you're scanning for the
computer screen then you may have to scale the photos down and the negatives
up.

 

[Charlie]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

Thanks.

There is no "best" resolution for scanning anything, negatives
included. Best depends on your intended use of the image(s). If you
want to archive them, and want the best images possible, I'd scan at
the optical resolution of your scanner. If that creates too large of
images for you, then downsize the images, or scan at a lower
resolution.... it's a trade-off. If all you want is to view on the
screen, then scanning at 300 ppi is probably OK. Also, for archiving,
I'd go with tiff as it is non-lossy.... but again if just for viewing
on the screen, then jpg is OK.

You should really spend some time at www.scantips.com, to understand
the options you have.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

 

[Jon Bell]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

The printing process almost always loses at least some of the tonal/color
information contained in the negative, because photo paper can accommodate
only a limited range of brightness and color. Therefore you almost always
better off scanning the negatives, assuming of course that your scanner
can do a decent job of it. This is especially true if your prints come
from a typical commercial processor, perhaps less so if you have your
prints custom-made.

 

[Hecate]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

Always scan the negs - there is much more information on the neg than
on the print.

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Whatever you can get. It's easy to cut down file sizes and
information but you can't replace data you don't have in the first
place.

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

It depends. If you're never, ever, in a million years, going to do any
work on those images then jpg is fine. If you may want to alter, or
play with them in any way, use Tiff. Then save them as jpg when you've
fi9nished with them, if you want to email them, and so forth.

 

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Newbie question. For some photos from the past (4" by 6"), I've also
kept the negatives. Since my Epson 3170 can do both, which one would
yield a better image?

second, when I scan negatives, what scan resolution range is the best?

Third, I'm scanning all my photos so I can have digital copies in case
paper ones get lost. Most likely I'll just view the photo on the screen
with Acdsee, on some occasionally circumstance, I might print one or two
out to share with people. I have about 1000 photos. If I scan them at
100% scale and 300 PPI, should I scan them into tiff or Jpeg?

For ultimate quality, there's a lot more information in the negative.
However, *with that scanner* you won't be getting all that's in the
negative; whether you'll get more than in the print I'm not sure.

Resolution and format for archiving is always a question. Jpeg is a
good format for viewing copies. It's not so good a format for copies
that will be edited in the future. One thing you have to decide is
how much flexibility you need in the future. If you're really sure
you and future people will never do anything but view these on the
screen, storing them just at screen resolution will meet your needs.
But how can you be sure? Your grandchildren may want to examine the
car on the edge of a frame that you thought was a picture of something
else entirely! Most people end up storing both a jpeg for viewing and
a full-res tiff for printing and editing.

There's no point in scanning 4x6 snapshot prints above 300 dpi; there
simply isn't any real information there at higher resolutions.