Why scan 8x10 at all?

[tim atherton]

"It's simple. Once you put it into Photoshop... it is Art. The ads say so &
we know those guys don't lie."

always such useful and well informed contributions

[Eric Leppanen]

Frank, When scanning transparencies for output to the Epson 9600 color printer, WCI told me some time back that they scan and manipulate the image at 240DPI (print size resolution), and only upres to 360DPI (to prevent the printer from doing its own rasterization) at print time. Their testing showed that workshop participants staring at prints with the naked eye saw no benefit to scanning above 180 DPI, although with a loupe additional benefits could be seen up to 240DPI.

Depending upon the subject, I start seeing artifacts of overenlargement (fuzzy pine needles on nearby pine trees, etc.) in my 4x5 landscape transparency work in print sizes above 24x30, even with Tango scans printed as mentioned above. I have recently added 8x10 for my arsenal (for a variety of reasons, including contact prints) and expect to see improved results (vs. 4x5) in some subjects with color prints above 24x30, and most subjects above 30x40. So far I've done only limited testing so I can't yet generally say how much improvement will be seen under what circumstances. One major challenge I've encountered is stabilizing the 8x10 camera (rigid tripod, using an umbrella to deflect the wind, etc.); in less than perfect conditions, I'm often better off using the 4x5 due to its smaller wind profile.

[Bruce Watson]

Frank,

I just wrote a bunch for a sister thread here:


http://largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/500423.html

that might help a bit. Or it might just confuse things. I'm not sure anymore ;-)

Much of what you want to know is effected by things outside of scanning - such as how big you are going to print it, what printing process, how you will display it, how you will light the display...

Someone good, who is trying to get the most out of the film and show it on the print, can indeed get more out of the 8x10 film than they can out of the 4x5 film. And yes, you'd be scanning at pretty large file sizes.

Right now, with micro$oft and therefore Adobe dragging their feet on 64 bit computing, we can't handle more than 2GB files IIRC. And there's more than 2GB of information in a piece of 8x10 film IMHO.

[chris jordan]

I worked with 4x5 transparencies for 10 years, drum scanning and making digital prints. Now I use 8x10, and I can clearly see the difference even in a 16x20" digital print. It's really just the same issue as printing the images in a darkroom-- making a 16x20 for example, the 8x10 has to be enlarged by four times, and the 4x5 has to be enlarged by sixteen times. It's not about the filesize alone (you could make a 2 GB scan from a 35mm original if you wanted); it's about the amount of detail in the file. A 300MB scan from an 8x10 original is significantly sharper and more detailed than a 300MB scan from a 4x5 original. Of course the difference becomes really visible in large prints; it is possible to make grainless 44x60" prints from scanned 8x10 originals, which couldn't be done from 4x5.

For all my LF friends, best wishes for happy holidays and a wonderful 2005,

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com

[mark blackman]

why scan 10x8? I don't have a 10x8 enlarger. Next question?

[Brian Ellis]

"Making the 16x20 for example, the 8x10 has to be enlarged by 4 times and the 4x5 has to be enlarged by 16 times. "

O.K., I'll bite. Why is a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative an enlargement of 16 times and the same print from an 8x10 negative an enlargement of 4 times?. I thought a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative was a 4x enlargement and from an 8x10 negative was a 2x enlargement.

But apart from that, Mark hit the nail on the head - you scan an 8x10 negative because you want to make a print larger than 8x10 and you don't havean 8x10 enlarger.

[Ken Lee]

" O.K., I'll bite. Why is a 16x20 print from a 4x5 negative an enlargement of 16 times and the same print from an 8x10 negative an enlargement of 4 times?"



Perhaps what Chris was referring to the area of the print: a 4x5 print has 20 square inches. A 16x20 has 320 square inches, 16 times the area.

While most of us would consider a 16x20 to be a 4x enlargement from a 4x5, it is also true that the area is 16 times as large.

[Jon_2416]

Why do you ask, Frank? It won't make your 4x6 Walmart prints any better!