How large a file should I reasonably hope for when scanning a 4X5 neg on an Epson v700? What is the "typical" size file printed from by a digital lab? What would minimum and maximum size files be when sending to a digital lab?
How large a digital file is reasonable to expect from a 4X5 neg scanned by a V700?
How large a file should I reasonably hope for when scanning a 4X5 neg on an Epson v700? What is the "typical" size file printed from by a digital lab? What would minimum and maximum size files be when sending to a digital lab?
Expect about 8600x10800 pixels. You can scan at higher pixel-counts, but you won't get any more image information.
The last photo I had published in a magazine was required to be 300 pixels/inch. But I think most folks would like to print on Epson printers at 360, though I can't tell that much difference for any prints over about 240. The V700 will easily support 20x24 prints of very good quality. The biggest I can print at home is 16x20, and my prints from 4x5 are critically sharp even with a magnifying glass.
I have a print from another photographer that was made from a 6x12 negative scanned on a 4990 and printed to 20x40 inches, which is about a 9x enlargement ratio. There is certainly nothing wrong with the sharpness of that print. At that ratio, a print from a 4x5 would be 36x45 inches. I'd say that's at the extreme of what will deliver reasonably good results, and many wouldn't go that far.
Rick "who can't predict other photographers' standards" Denney
To get the size in B (bytes):
1) Scan resolution (in spi) is R
2) Area of the film is X * Y (in inches)
For 24 bit (3 byt) scans (8 bit per color means 1 byt per color and that is 3 byt altogether) you get:
Size = 3 x R * R * X * Y
if you add X = 4, Y = 5, R = 2400 spi you get about 345 MB. It will be less as the film area is a bit less than 4 x 5 inch.
The size will double for 48 bit scans.
Exactly the same, but a different memo technique - compute first how much data (pixels) you get form one inch square and then multiply with the film area.
The above stated size of files is valid for non compressed TIF files - but that is usually what you re after.
How much resolution you need depends on how large you want to print and how large files can your computer crunch.
If you send your files for printing - the JPEG saved at quality (in Photoshop) of 11 or 10 (or even 9 - especially for larger prints) is fine - you do not need to send TIF files for printing.
Example 1: Printing a file at 30 x 40 cm (@360 dpi) the file size is in my case about 10 MB.
Example 2: I was sending a file with resolution of 360 dpi for printing. The file size was approx. 7100 x 9900 pixels. The size was 21 MB in JPEG. I think the compression in PS was 9, just because the online webpage of the printing company accepts files up to 25MB and I did not want to bother with putting the file somewhere on a server.
Matus
8600x10800 RGB 16-bit equals 531.5mb.
For more pedestrian hacks like me, I'll scan half that size and still have a nice file that my computer can handle without slowing down too much. Any larger file is going to slow you down, it's a matter of your patience and horsepower.
Some of the people here will get gigabyte-plus files from drum scanners, for making giant prints (or direct to film output) or for "just having the best". But note that they really need a serious, loaded Mac Pro tower, the sort of thing w 16gb of RAM, a giant printer, giant monitors, giant hard drives... so their investment in this stuff increases logarithmically.
More power to them, but it's OK to keep things in perspective and create a workflow to match the scale of your resources. And as you know, the size of the print or file has little bearing in the quality of the work.
Check the http://www.gigapxl.org/gallery.htm where the pictures, um, suck.
I remember being able to watch a 30-minute tv show back in 1994 when my loaded, hot-rodded Mac IIci had to do moves and filters on a 75mb image. That was 30 minutes per, one thing!
Many people have a work flow where they "scan to archive". That is, the scan is made at the highest practical resolution and the raw scan is then processed and archived. Later if you want to print from the file at a given size you load it and adjust the size to whatever resolution you like. I generally like to print with the file at 480 dpi at the printing size, but 360 dpi is probably enough for most images.
The largest practical size may be determined by the capabilities of your hardware, or by the potential of your negative and/or scanner. Most people would agree that scanning at 2000-2400 ppi with a drum scanner or high end flatbed is more than adequate for 95% or more of all LF negatives. That gives a file size of 152mb - 220mb (90mp -115mp) when scanning grayscale a 4X5" B&W negative at 16 bits. MB size is 3X this for color.
Sandy King
For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
[url]https://groups.io/g/carbon
Exactly what I do - so just supporting your point fully. Why go to the effort of working on a small file only to find that you need it at a larger size some time later?Originally Posted by sanking
I keep file copies of both my original unadjusted scan (except for its spotting) as well as a final fully worked up flattened 16 bit tiff file. So, if the original negative dies a death for some reason (of course it shouldn't, but ...) - I could rework the file into a new rendition at a later date. I don't keep a file version with all of the layers - that would turn one of my 180MB 16 bit greyscale files into a multi-GB file.
I made a 30x40" photo from a 4x5 negative, with very good quality.
325 M ...
Well that's what I find just perfect. Big enough but not too big to deal with.
Achieving that is left as an exercise for the user. (shades of *nix past)
Slightly OT, but it sounds like some of you guys are working with large files in PS, when you really don't need to. I learned this trick from my friend Rich back in 2000 or so...
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/...guidefile.html
Tossing master files with all of your adjustment layers is unnecessary.
CH
Very interesting.I'm gonna try this out.Thanks for the link!
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