Hello! I've read "Real World Scanning and Halftones" and I have a question.

I scanned a 4x5 negative and I wanted to print it 8x10 on my R220 with MIS inks. The scene contained a lot of fine line detail from limb branches. I set the white/dark points and the midtones, but no sharpening or curves. Scanning at 600 spi and then printing the image showed the limbs as irregular linear blotches.

When I scanned at 2400 spi and then printed without downsizing, the interrupted blotchiness of the limbs disappeared on the 8x10.

1) It appeared that there was an advantage to scanning at a higher resolution than the print size required for a 2x enlargment in order to capture the fine linear detail. Could this have been due to some sharpening in the software that I wasn't aware of?

2) What is the advantage of downsizing a file when printing? I imagine the printer driver does the interpolation down to the appropriate ppi of the printer for the size of the print. Is there an advantage of doing this in the phot editing software as opposed to letting the printer do this? Best regards.

Mike