Scanning and posting photographs to this forum

**Rory_3532** · 6-Jan-2004, 17:47

I suspect that this is a really elementary question for people who are familiar with digital photography. Anyway, here goes. I have a black and white T-max 100 negative that I want to post to this forum for critique and that I want to work on with a friend's copy of Photoshop, a programme with which I have very limited experience. This morning, I asked my local pro lab about the cost of scans. In turn, they explained that they charge by the megabite and asked what "size" scan I want. Given my intended uses, should I have the negative scanned at the format size (4x5) or enlarged size (e.g. 8x10) and what is the difference?

**Bruce E. Rathbun** · 6-Jan-2004, 18:07

Hi Rory, If you are only interested in using the image for web display the 4x5 size is fine. The enlarged scan would be very large when displayed on the forum. For an idea of the size of the scan at web display take the image in photoshop and do a save for web. You can preview the final image size in pixels. An average monitor display size is around 1024 x 768 pixels. Hope this helps. If you need more help feel free to email me off the forum for help.

**Andre Noble** · 6-Jan-2004, 20:52

Open the scan of your neg into Photoshop. Then, go: Image>Image Size> under "Document Size" set "Resolution" to 72 pixels per inch. Then directly above resolution, enter width around 5 or 6 inches (height will automatically proportion itself).

Your scan will now display in size 5 or 6 inches across our monitors because monitors, regardless of how large each is, have 72 pixels to the inch of resolution.

This will most likely now make your file size much smaller than original scan, so you want to save it using a different name using the "save as" feature. Finally, save as a "jpeg" since it's for web use.