Its simple as to why they charge more for the CD than the print - on the CD
you have a perfect copy of the image that you can make prints from (I assume
that the CD includes a licence to do that). On the print, you have bought a
print, and I presume NO LICENCE to reproduce the image - ie, by you scanning
and reprinting the image, you are breaching copyright. (* all legal
disclaimers apply)

If you were to by the negative, I guess that the price would be higher than
the CD alone.

"Theseeker" wrote in message
...
I am about to buy a colour aerial photo of a sixty square mile area.
The firm supplying these charges more for the image on CD than it does
for a printed photograph. Don't ask me why, I've queried it and the
differential is vast. Obviously I am considering buying the printed
version, scanning it and saving it to CD for future
ehancement/enlargement. Will I lose any quality with this conversion?
I have a SCSI scanner and Photoshop so I am confident I could get
about 1440 dpi.
Would I be better off buying a negative and getting a professional to
digitize it?