Absurdly huge files

[Dilznik]

Hi,

I was wondering what you guys do all your scanning at? I've tried both 3200 and 6400dpi on my Epson V600 (it's mostly for testing results, like a digital contact page) and the files it produces totally bog my laptop down when I try to do something with them in Perfect Photo Suite 8, for example. 18 megapixel digital files from my Olympus are no problem so it's surely the size of these files.

I'm using a MacBook Pro with 8gb ram, a hybrid drive, and 512mb video ram.

Does anyone else have this kind of problem? Maybe I'm doing it wrong and should expose my photos properly so I don't have a need for post-production.

[Mark Stahlke]

Your scanning resolutions are beyond your scanner's optical resolution. Scanning at 1200dpi would give you manageable file sizes with no loss of real detail.

[djdister]

A little more detail - are you scanning at 8 bit or 16 bit, and what are the resulting file sizes? And why are you scanning them at 3200 or 6400 dpi? You would only need to do that if you needed to print a scanned image to 10 or 20 times larger than the actual size (because printing resolution would be 300 or 320 dpi).

[Ken Lee]

Your scanning resolutions are beyond your scanner's optical resolution. Scanning at 1200dpi would give you manageable file sizes with no loss of real detail.

Indeed.

There has been a lot of discussion of these Epson flatbed scanners on this forum over the years and the general consensus is that the best they can do is between 1600-2400 dpi (depending on who you ask).

[Lenny Eiger]

I regularly work with field anywhere from about 750 mb to 5Gigs. I use PhotoShop CS6. I think things over 5Gigs are "absurdly huge". (I have done some, that were anywhere from 15-35Gigs. Truly annoying.)

Lenny

[Nathan Potter]

I agree that around 1500 spi gives about all the real detail you're going to get from an Epson V750. A V600 I'm not sure, but probably even less than the V750. I regularly scan at 2400 spi using an Epson V750 and the file size for a 4X5 chrome is 210 MB at 16 bit. I'm guessing your file size should be even less and not a large problem using 8 Gig of RAM unless something else in your system is not up to par.

BTW I recently posted an MTF plot for the Epson V750 pro on the Lounge here along with a plot for the Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED machine (35 mm. scanner). I'm guessing that the V600 falls somewhere below the V750 in contrast/resolution. The equivalent spot size for the V750 is around 30 µm at 100% contrast; the V600 somewhat larger but I don't know how much so.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Leigh]

Realize that every time you double the scan resolution you quadruple the size of the resulting file.

Suppose you scan an image at 600 dpi and get a 10 Megabyte file (as an example)...
If you scan the same image at 1200 dpi your file will be 40 Megabytes.
If you scan the same image at 2400 dpi your file will be 160 Megabytes.
If you scan the same image at 4800 dpi your file will be 640 Megabytes.
If you scan the same image at 9600 dpi your file will be 2560 Megabytes.

The file size is entirely your choice, not the choice of the scanner.

- Leigh

[Darin Boville]

Looking strictly at image quality factors--putting aside the troubles with large files, etc--is there any reason not to scan at the scanner's max? That is, is there any hit on quality to set it higher than the suggestions here--or just no perceived gain?

Any reason to think that scanning at the scanner's max and then downsampling to your needed resolution is better/worse than scanning it at that resolution to begin with?

--Darin

[Leigh]

is there any reason not to scan at the scanner's max?

Hi Darin,

No reason I can think of.

It's a question of which software gives the most accurate down-sampled image, that in the scanner or a separate program that you have.

I always scan at max resolution and save the resulting file as a TIFF (lossless, not compressed).
That way I can always revert to the original image if subsequent manipulation does not produce the desired result.

- Leigh

[Darin Boville]

I always scan at max resolution and save the resulting file as a TIFF (lossless, not compressed).
That way I can always revert to the original image if subsequent manipulation does not produce the desired result.

- Leigh

That's what I do, too. I figure any inconveniences of file size and software speed will only diminish over time. And I hate scanning so why not do it just once...

--Darin