Thank you !
Ever since being reminded that even office laser printers output at 600 dpi, I have been suspect of the 360 dpi output so popular among Epson users. I need to find out whether 720 is worth the extra pixels, on the paper I use.
If 720 is indeed a preferred setting, this suggests that one can enlarge around 2-3 times at most using a 4990... Ouch.
Ken: I have no experience with the original subject of the thread. But I noted your suggestion to switch up to 5x7 film.Originally Posted by Ken Lee
Certainly a good idea when/where it can be done. But the feasibility of actually doing that is not so good any more.
I have a freezer full of current and vintage films in 4x5-inch. i.e., RDP, RDP-II, RDP-III, RVP, RVP-100, RAP, TP, RTP, RTP-II, VPL, VPS, TMX, TP, EPY, E100VS, HSI, Ektar-100, Adox-25, Efke-Aura, NSP, CDU-II... and probably some others I've forgotten.
Not many in this list can be gotten in 5x7.
For me and my hobby work the Epson 4990 has been an excellent setup and there has been no need to seek any higher resolution. When it crashes for good I'll upgrade at that time. Bob G.
All natural images are analog. But the retina converts them to digital on their way to the brain.
It's always seemed to me that the entire area of output settings is a morass of conflicting information. Some say you should send prints to the printer at the printer's native resolution (which is where your 360/720 numbers come from). But there doesn't seem to be agreement on what that resolution is for Epson pro printers such as my 3800 printer. Some seemingly reputable sources say it's 360ppi, other seemingly reputable sources say it's 720 (and then of course there are those who say it doesn't matter, that sending at an even multiple of the native resolution is as good as sending at the native resoltuion so if you send at 360 you're fine either way). Then the person in the article linked above said that his testing showed that the native resolution of his Epson 2200 printer was 288, not 360 or 720.
Then there's the more fundamental question of whether you should even try to send at the native resolution (or an even multiple) whatever that is. Some say the resampling usually needed to send at 360 (or 720 or 180 or 288) creates bigger problems than sending at the original resolution whatever that may be. Others disagree. And still others (e.g. the well-known and very reputable Eric Chan) take a middle course and say it depends on when you do your sharpening, that if you sharpen after resampling then resampling is fine.
I haven't bothered to provide cites to all this conflicting information, it's easily found just by doing an all-words search in Google on "epson 3800 native resolution) and reading the first four or five links that come up.
My own practice is to not resample, not try to send everything to the printer at the 3800's "native resolution" whatever that may be, and instead to just send at whatever the resolution is at the print size I want, as long as that resolution is at least 240 ppi which it almost always is. I've been happy with my prints doing that though I'd be happy to change methods if I could find any general agreement on a new and better method.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
I try to send 360 ppi to my 3800, as in some images I can see a difference between 300 and 360. But for larger prints with a greater viewing distance 240 is fine.
I have tested several images using both 720 and 360 ppi files, (Epson 3800 at 2880 dpi) and never have seen a difference, except in spooling time.
Sandy,
What is the resolution setting in the (Epson?) software that delivers this "real resolution" with the "film holder" setting? 2400 dpi or ???
thanks
And what setting, if any, in VueScan uses the higher res lens?
--Darin
What is the resolution setting... ?
You scan a resolution target. You specify a 2400 spi scan, and you get a file where there are 2400 pixels per square inch.
Now, you look at the file and determine how much data can be distinguished from the scan. You find out that you can distinguish the target lines which correspond to 1600 spi.
The German web site www.filmscanner.info did a study of the Epson 700 in this way, using the classic USAF resolution target. As you can see in the article, they tell you that the actual resolution is closer to 2300 dpi. They show you the image of the target. It's all straightforward.
With the 4990, you can scan at any higher setting you like, and you will get a correspondingly larger file - but the extra pixels are just more... blur. You can still only distinguish 1600 spi. The same is true with the 700: there is an upper limit, and it's not the one claimed by Epson's advertising.
You might find it interesting to look on the same site. and see how they rate the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED. They distinguish between vertical and horizontal resolution, and measure it quite precisely. The Nikon's actual resolution matches the advertised claim - a more common occurrence with dedicated film scanners, than with affordable flatbeds.
For scanning color materials, we are limited, as it were, by the fuzziest of the 3 channels. Scanning b&w, we can sometimes get the sharpest results by using only the green channel - which is usually the best of the 3.
Last edited by Ken Lee; 24-Oct-2010 at 14:26.
Scanning at 3200 spi will give you nearly the full 2300 spi. Scanning at 4800 spi and 6400 spi will give a very slight improvement.
I can not help you with Vuescan as I hav not used it with the Epson V700, only the Epson application.
Sandy
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No offense but I respectfully disagree with this observation. As I said before I was able to perform best scan at 2300spi/ppi as the best resolution on my scanner which is Epson 4990. I ran tests too and that's what I observed. I won't let myself deprive of additional information by scanning at poor 1600 spi.
Good for you, but I reported my test results, not yours. You have nothing to disagree with me about unless you are saying I did not observe what I said I observed. I have never claimed my results were anything but my own observations.
However, you may have misunderstood what I said. I did not say that the best results were obtained when scanning at 1600 spi, but that 1600 spi was the highest effective resolution I was able to observe, even when scanning at 2400 spi, 3200 spi and 4800 spi.
Sandy King
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