Scanning Photos dpi - Advice needed

Access

Hi...

I am going to start to scan our "pre digital camera" (pre 2002) 4x6 photos from our photo albums this weekend.

There is a few hundred to be done, but i can scan 4 at a time on our kodak all in one, so at least that's a bit of time saving.

My problem is with what scan dpi to select...

300/600/1200/2400/4800 or 9600?

I will mostly be archiving them on our pc for viewing and also backed up on our external hard drive, but i would also like to be able to print off the photos i scan in the future with like for like results from the original photo.

Any help would be appreciated.

nager

Personally I would scan at the highest resolution possible. If you ever want them smaller (for use online etc) you can always downsize them - but you can never upsize them to a higher resolution. If you're putting the effort into scanning them - then the higher the better imop.

MiskyBoyy

Access wrote: »

Hi...

I am going to start to scan our "pre digital camera" (pre 2002) 4x6 photos from our photo albums this weekend.

There is a few hundred to be done, but i can scan 4 at a time on our kodak all in one, so at least that's a bit of time saving.

My problem is with what scan dpi to select...

300/600/1200/2400/4800 or 9600?

I will mostly be archiving them on our pc for viewing and also backed up on our external hard drive, but i would also like to be able to print off the photos i scan in the future with like for like results from the original photo.

Any help would be appreciated.

Good luck doing that. I scanned approximately 1000 6x4 prints a month ago or so and the printer I'm using only does 1 photo at a time. Best way to figure out which is best is to scan them at the highest and then scan at the next DPI setting down and see if there's any difference in speed. If there's not much difference then fire away and scan at highest DPI Also, I didn't use the software that came with the scanner. I downloaded a third party one which was a lot quicker. Only problem I had was taking the photos out of their albums to scan and then putting them back in. Takes up more time than the actual scanning lol.

DaireQuinlan

Hah, scanning prints at 9600 dpi would be ludicrous for all sorts of reasons. I scan 6x6cm negatives at 2400 dpi and end up with uncomfortably large files :-)
It's unlikely your scanner even resolves anywhere near that anyhow. I'd scan at 600 dpi max, which allows you to print 12x8s from the resultant files at 300dpi if the mood ever takes you. Chances are even that'll be complete overkill, the prints are very likely not up to that much enlargement in the first place.

Access

DaLad wrote: »

Good luck doing that. I scanned approximately 1000 6x4 prints a month ago or so and the printer I'm using only does 1 photo at a time. Best way to figure out which is best is to scan them at the highest and then scan at the next DPI setting down and see if there's any difference in speed. If there's not much difference then fire away and scan at highest DPI Also, I didn't use the software that came with the scanner. I downloaded a third party one which was a lot quicker. Only problem I had was taking the photos out of their albums to scan and then putting them back in. Takes up more time than the actual scanning lol.

What dpi did you settle on in the end for the 1000 pics you did?

MiskyBoyy

Access wrote: »

What dpi did you settle on in the end for the 1000 pics you did?

Jeeze, I can't remember really. I think it was something like 1200 DPI or so. I just took a few sample scans and they looked good enough so settled for whatever DPI it was on. You should do a test scan on one photo at about 1200 dpi and see how it comes out.

Access

Thanks for the replys so far... very much appreciated...

Just after checking a picture i scanned at 600dpi...

Scanned photo came out at...

Dimensions: 3548 x 2300
Size: 4.86 MB
Horizontal resolution: 600 dpi
Vertical resolution: 600 dpi

Then checked a recent photo taken with our everyday use Sony 10 MP compact...

Recent Digital photo taken...

Dimensions: 4320 x 3240
Size: 4.72 MB
Horizontal resolution: 96 dpi
Vertical resolution: 96 dpi

96 dpi for the digital camera photo??? that must be wrong? have i missed something?

Can someone confirm that my scan setting of 600 dpi is fine so for the photos i wish to store on hard drive and print off at a later stage - with maybe the option of enlargements of same (and to what size could i enlarge?)

Pete67

DPI for an image file doesn't really mean anything until you come to print it. For example if you were to print your 4320 x 3240 file at 96 dpi you would get a 45 inch x 33.75 inch print. At a much more reasonable 300 dpi it would be 14.4 x 10.8 inch.