What resolution would a high street lab scan?

My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not
tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they
would use something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.


Do you think this is acceptable? I am tempted to go back and ask them to
scan them properly at a usable resolution or refund the money, as I feel
its a bit of a mickey take to scan at only 1.5 million pixels.

I'm interest in how common this practice is.
--
Dave K MCSE.

MCSE = Minefield Consultant and Solitaire Expert.

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually.

http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)

My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not tell
her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they would use
something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5 Mpixel
camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with more than
1.5 Mpixel.

Most folks who want scans are just going to look at them on a computer,
and 1500x1000 is as large of a viewable area as they'll have on their
screen, and if you give it to them any larger, they say "These are too big."
You have to remember that 99.5% of the population is clueless when it comes
to digital imagery. If you didn't specify what you wanted, you can't
complain about what you got.

On the other hand, if you go back and nicely, politely explain that there
was a mixup in the communication, they might offer to rescan them for you
for free.

steve

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
...
My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not
tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they
would use something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Most folks who want scans are just going to look at them on a computer,
and 1500x1000 is as large of a viewable area as they'll have on their
screen, and if you give it to them any larger, they say "These are too
big." You have to remember that 99.5% of the population is clueless when
it comes to digital imagery. If you didn't specify what you wanted, you
can't complain about what you got.

On the other hand, if you go back and nicely, politely explain that there
was a mixup in the communication, they might offer to rescan them for you
for free.

I doubt it. Quality scans at resolutions significantly higher than 1.5 MP
are expensive, and the 1.5MP scans are so cheap as to be almost free (the
automated commercial printers generated them as a side effect of producing
a 4x6 print, as I understand it).

Even worse, ISO 200 and higher consumer color print film is horrendously
bad stuff and doesn't support scans much above 1.5MP (look up "grain
aliasing" and notice that it's the ISO 200 consumer films that have the
problem). If you want decent scans from 35mm, you need to use quality
film, such as Reala, Provia 100F, the (relatively new) Fuji ISO 160
professional color negative films, or the like.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


I tried getting them scanned once, was not happy so bought a reasonable
scanner to do the job myself, I can now do my old slides as well. The Canon
8400F I got does the job very nicely.

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
...
My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not
tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they
would use something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Most folks who want scans are just going to look at them on a computer,
and 1500x1000 is as large of a viewable area as they'll have on their
screen, and if you give it to them any larger, they say "These are too
big." You have to remember that 99.5% of the population is clueless when
it comes to digital imagery. If you didn't specify what you wanted, you
can't complain about what you got.

On the other hand, if you go back and nicely, politely explain that there
was a mixup in the communication, they might offer to rescan them for you
for free.

I doubt it. Quality scans at resolutions significantly higher than 1.5 MP
are expensive, and the 1.5MP scans are so cheap as to be almost free (the
automated commercial printers generated them as a side effect of producing
a 4x6 print, as I understand it).

Even worse, ISO 200 and higher consumer color print film is horrendously
bad stuff and doesn't support scans much above 1.5MP (look up "grain
aliasing" and notice that it's the ISO 200 consumer films that have the
problem). If you want decent scans from 35mm, you need to use quality
film, such as Reala, Provia 100F, the (relatively new) Fuji ISO 160
professional color negative films, or the like.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


Yes, and you'd be well advised to take your shots from a tripod, too....My
5400 ppi scanner is way too good for most of my color film shots, and even
for the ones taken from a tripod.....

Dave (from the UK) wrote:
My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not
tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they
would use something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Do you think this is acceptable?

What resolution? What's the size of the files? It's likely they were
scanned at 300 and 72 dpi so at 1500x1000 you get 5x3.5 inch prints and
Web-sized images. If you don't specify the resolution or prints size
you want them scanned, and they're just standard scans and prints,
they'll likely just use 300 dpi jpegs. Just my experience with labs
here (US).

In article ,
says...

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Kodak Picture CD images (JPG) are 1536x1024 pixels from 35 mm film
(1536x864 pixels if from APS film). These will print 6x4 inches at 250
dpi. I dont know about the UK, but these Kodak Picture CD scans are
commonly and inexpensively available at processing labs in the USA when
(and only when) you have the negatives developed. This is their option.

Some labs can offer larger scans, independent of developing, but you
surely must specify what you want, or at least ask what they can do.

--
Wayne
http://www.scantips.com "A few scanning tips"

Wayne wrote:

In article ,
says...

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Kodak Picture CD images (JPG) are 1536x1024 pixels from 35 mm film
(1536x864 pixels if from APS film). These will print 6x4 inches at 250
dpi. I dont know about the UK, but these Kodak Picture CD scans are
commonly and inexpensively available at processing labs in the USA when
(and only when) you have the negatives developed. This is their option.

Some labs can offer larger scans, independent of developing, but you
surely must specify what you want, or at least ask what they can do.

At the last lab where I worked they used a Fuji Frontier which
delivered 1200 x 1800 scans. That works out to a bit over 1100 dpi.

I expect that higher resolution scans require dedicated scanning
equipment, are more time consuming and, of course, greater expense.

--
Mark Roberts Photography & Multimedia
www.robertstech.com
412-687-2835

Dave (from the UK) wrote:

My wife took a 35 mm colour print film into a high street lab and asked
for it to be developed, 3 sets of prints and scanned to CD. I did not
tell her what resolution I wanted them scanned at, but assumed they
would use something half reasonable.

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

That's more than adequate for a 4x6" print or for editing to a webpage
or e-mail. It would probably print decently to 8x12" @ 125 print dpi
and viewed at arms length.

FWIW, I got some 6x6 scans done to 3260 x 3260 (FujiFrontier) which
underwhelmed me a great deal, but the cost was only $1 each.

I have a 5400 dpi scanner, but it can't do 6x6, so I'm patiently waiting
for an opportunity to buy the Nikon 9000 ED. A 6x6 (56mm x 56mm) will
scan to 8800 x 8800 pixels.

Do you think this is acceptable? I am tempted to go back and ask them to
scan them properly at a usable resolution or refund the money, as I feel
its a bit of a mickey take to scan at only 1.5 million pixels.

For the price they (likely) charged it's probably quite reasonable, but
you should ask if they can do better.

I'm interest in how common this practice is.

Very. Drum scans (higher resolution, wet contact) will cost $25 or more
per frame to scan.

Cheers,
Alan.


--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

David J. Littleboy wrote:
"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message

On the other hand, if you go back and nicely, politely explain that there
was a mixup in the communication, they might offer to rescan them for you
for free.


I doubt it. Quality scans at resolutions significantly higher than 1.5 MP
are expensive, and the 1.5MP scans are so cheap as to be almost free (the
automated commercial printers generated them as a side effect of producing a
4x6 print, as I understand it).

I'll put it down to experience then and will ask another time if I want
decent resolution. At least I still have the negatives.

Even worse, ISO 200 and higher consumer color print film is horrendously bad
stuff and doesn't support scans much above 1.5MP (look up "grain aliasing"
and notice that it's the ISO 200 consumer films that have the problem). If
you want decent scans from 35mm, you need to use quality film, such as
Reala, Provia 100F, the (relatively new) Fuji ISO 160 professional color
negative films, or the like.

I forget what film this was, but it is not a professional one. But the
images are clearly limited in quality by the pixel size, and not any
other artificts or gain size.

--
Dave K MCSE.

MCSE = Minefield Consultant and Solitaire Expert.

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually.

http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)

"Mark Roberts" wrote in message
...
Wayne wrote:

In article ,
says...

The images have come back scanned at two resolutions - the highest of
which is 1500 x 1000 pixels. I'm sure most people would agree a 1.5
Mpixel camera would be poor, and even mobile phones are available with
more than 1.5 Mpixel.

Kodak Picture CD images (JPG) are 1536x1024 pixels from 35 mm film
(1536x864 pixels if from APS film). These will print 6x4 inches at 250
dpi. I dont know about the UK, but these Kodak Picture CD scans are
commonly and inexpensively available at processing labs in the USA when
(and only when) you have the negatives developed. This is their option.

Some labs can offer larger scans, independent of developing, but you
surely must specify what you want, or at least ask what they can do.

At the last lab where I worked they used a Fuji Frontier which
delivered 1200 x 1800 scans. That works out to a bit over 1100 dpi.

I expect that higher resolution scans require dedicated scanning
equipment, are more time consuming and, of course, greater expense.


When Picture CD was first introduced Kodak was still promoting its
professional "Photo CD" product, which offered much higher resolution albeit
at a higher price.

Kodak positioned their "Picture CD" more toward the casual film photographer
that wanted to be able to get digitized photos for sharing over the
Internet--and the Picture CD resolution is quite adequate for that purpose.
There was even enough resolution to make an acceptable 4x6 print.

But I do not believe that Kodak ever intended Picture CDs to be used for
digital archival purposes, or to be the source for higher-quality (i.e.,
larger-sized) prints. Kodak always, as far as I know, marketed the product
for amateur purposes.

Once higher-resolution film scanners became available, the Photo CD product
really became a bit dated. Who was going to spend a dollar or two PER
FRAME, and travel to and from the processor (or pay postage), when they
could scan in-house?

So now we are left only with Picture CD, and who knows how long even that
will last? It may serve as a poor man's "Photo CD," but its limitations are
obvious.