Developwebsites wrote:

I have a lot of photos I'd like to get reprints of, some enlarged
and scanned.
Is it better to scan them and crop and blowup on the computer or crop then
enlarge from negative then scan? Is the quality of the print(size of grain)
the same if I crop and enlarge a subject 3x to 4x6 as it is if I just enlarge a
4x6 3x and then scan and crop?

I have used ISO100,200,400 but dont remember which negs
are which. Some negatives do say 200 or 400 on the strip, some dont.

You have too many variables undetermined in your post for any definitive answers to
be given. Do you have negative scanning capability? and if so, what pixel count?
What image-handling program do you have - Photoshop, or similar? You mention
enlarging 3x to get a 6x4 print, so does that mean you have a larger than 35mm
negative, like 6x4.5cm, or did you mean a 4x enlargement?

In principle, you should scan the negatives and enlarge and crop in the computer to
produce files cropped, sized, tonally adjusted, and sharpened, ready for printing,
preferably on a Frontier machine. Printing first and then scanning introduces
another stage into the process of producing your final image, with the consequent
reduction in quality because of the intermediate print. Scanning a negative will
give better quality than scanning a print from the negative.

You don't say whether the negs are b/w or colour. If b/w, in my experience with
hundreds of archived family photos going back up to 100 years plus, a b/w scan will
print on a Frontier with excellent results, practically no coloration at all. Fuji
Crystal Archive paper has an anticipated life of about 65 years.

Colin