Newbie Question/Scanning 4x5 Negatives

[DustyE255]

Hi there... I'm quite new at scanning. I'm hoping that someone with more experience than I can offer advice on the best ways to scan 4x5 B&W negatives to allow me to print from 4x5 inch up to 11x14 inch. What would the optimum dpi for such sizes be? And once scanned, how should I save the files for best & sharpest printing on my Epson printer? I am using an Epson 4870 scanner and am using Epson Scan and PhotoShop Elements. Any tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help.

[Jim Jones]

I would scan at maybe 2000 dpi, and downsize and sharpen to the desired size for printing after all cropping and other editing is finished. The initial scan can be saved as a TIFF to permit re-editing at any later date. I also save the file used for printing as a TIFF. Others with more experience can provide better advice.

[sanking]

I would scan the 4X5 negative with an Epson 4870 at the highest possible resolution, which is 4800 dpi as I recall, then immediately downsize to 2400 dpi and save this as a .tiff file. Now do any tonal corrections and corrections you want, and some capture sharpening if you did not do so when scanning, and then save this as a corrected tiff file. Later you can open this file and re-size to the desired printing size, and add output sharpening.

To get optimum results with the 4870 dpi I woud also recommend that you learn to fluid mount, and to find the plane of best focus for the lens, which is nearly always somewhat above the glassl.

Sandy