In article , Phillip Helbig (undress to
reply) wrote:

Now that I photograph exclusively digitally (Pentax K10D and Ricoh GR),
of course I have all the pictures as JPEG files (and RAW as well from
the K10D). I got the K10D in 2008. From 2002 until then, when
developing film (usually Kodak, usually ISO 200), I asked for scans on a
CD. (I was using a Ricoh KR10 Super.) Depending on various things,
including where I got the film developed and scanned, these are about
500--1500 kB. JPEG files produced by the K10D (set to produce the best
and highest-resolution JPEG files) are between 2 and 4 MB.

don't scan to jpeg.

Does it appear possible that re-scanning the film in higher resolution
would produce better results? (Of course one can scan it in arbitrarily
high resolution and produce arbitrarily large JPEG files. The point is,
what resolution is meaningful and what file size should that produce.)

you don't say at what resolution they were scanned, but based on the
size and that they were scanned at a store, it's probably a low
resolution scan.

buy a used 4000 ppi dedicated negative scanner such as the nikon
coolscan 4000 and scan to tiff and then sell it when you're done for
roughly what you paid for it. if you don't want to do the scanning
yourself (it's easy but very time consuming) find a professional
scanning service to do it, *not* the local camera store.

....

For a couple of thousand pictures, what would be a reasonable price?

there are many companies that can do it for you and prices are around
$1/ea for quality scans.

keep in mind that there are no backups with film so if they lose or
damage what you send them, it's gone.

How is film developed today? At some point, did developers start
scanning the negatives and printing the JPEG files on film, as opposed
to doing it the old way?

no.

film is developed the same way it always has but prints are now done
with digital printers not optical ones, which produce as good or better
results. although the negative is scanned at a very high resolution,
there is no interim jpeg (or any format).

If so, the prints I have from 2002 to 2008
might be prints of the JPEG files I already have.

they're not.