Copy size with Genuine Fractals available

[ghfisher]

I have an Epson 636 scanner w/Silverfast, Photoshop, Genuine Fractals and Epson Photo 1270 printer.

I am working mostly with 3x5 poor to medium quality (pre 1950) B/W prints and will print 8x10 or slightly larger. Obviously nothing greater that 13 inch wide (Printer size).

Question: Am I better off scanning at a larger size or scanning at 100% and then using GF to print?

[Ed_L]

Hi Jerry,

Welcome to the site. I think you'll like it here since there are a lot of people who know what they're doing, and they don't mind sharing their expertise. I don't have the answer to your question, but have you made comparisons? Having never worked with GF, I couldn't even offer a guess. I suppose it would also depend somewhat on your scanner capabilities?

Where is Bluffton? Is it somewhere near Indy?

Ed

[ghfisher]

I am just getting started in working with old time stuff and haven't done the research. Hoped someone had gone before me and I didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Bluffton is about 30 miles south of Fort Wayne.

[KevinBE]

Hi Jerry, welcome to Retouch Pro! Since you already have Genuine Fractals it will be nice to have for those images that you will want to enlarge to very large sizes. Your scanner, I think, has a resolution of 600 X 2400 DPI. This indicates that the optical resolution of your scanner is 600 DPI. Scanning at a resolution higher than 600 DPI will result in the scanner software using interpolation to produce the higher DPI rate. Genuine Fractals does much the same thing but will probably do it much better than your scanner software can. So I would stick to 600 DPI max.

When I scan a 3" X 5" picture I usually scan at a high resolution. You should get the biggest picture you can from your scanner, which would be 600 DPI at 100%. This should allow you to print up to an 8" X 10" picture with no problems. Prints larger than that you might bring Genuine Fractals into play to see if it can improve the print resolution. It all really depends on the image in question and how big a print you think you might need.

In answer to you question about if you should scan at a higher resolution? The answer is yes. You should always get the best possible image using the scanner especially with small pictures or slides and negatives. You will always get a better picture if you scan at the higher resolution than if you scan at a lower resolution and then use something like Genuine Fractals to make up the difference.

I hope this information helps.

[ghfisher]

Kevin,

Thanks. Much Help.

Jerry