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By Rey Mendoza on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 05:55 pm:
I have a 1/2 inch photo(1930) to be restored and enlarged.
What resolution should I scan it?
What considerations should i take?
By Doug Nelson (doug) on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 07:34 pm:
At that size there's probably not much resolution in the original. But I'd still scan it at your scanner's highest optical resolution (not interpolated). Scan in 16bit mode if you have that option available.
Even at 1200dpi (assuming you can scan that high) you're only going to have 600 total pixels to work with. That's about enough for a medium-quality 3x5 inch picture.
You're probably going to have to fake some resolution with a blur layer and experiment with blend modes.
By Tom George on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 09:59 pm:
Rey; I have had a few of those tiny ones brought in by customers and have found that what Doug suggested just about covers all that can be said. I would add however that sometimes, and I stress sometimes, by using the Program Genuine Fractals it is possible to bump up the final size to around 5x6 or so without introducing unacceptable levels of artifact. Also converting to LAB color mode,sharpening the Lightness channel and possibly playing with the levels and curves at the same time and applying varying degrees of gaussian blur to the A and B channels can on occasion improve the overall look. hope some of this helps. good luck Tom
By Rey Mendoza on Friday, June 29, 2001 - 08:11 am:
Doug & Tom: Thank you very much for the quick reply. I did scan it at 1200 dpi and had fairly good results. I still have to experiment on the LAB color mode.
thanks again.
By Rey Mendoza on Sunday, July 01, 2001 - 05:27 pm:
I did scan the photo at 1200 dpi and the results was fairly good in the monitor. But there was one discrepancy, the pixels it generated was 3600 instead of 900 that you mentioned. and one more thing, I did scan it at 1200 dpi and set it to 400% enlargement (UMAX Vista Scan)
The restored output was 240MB tiff file. I burned it in a CD-ROM and brought it to Kodak for printing.
Still, the printed output (at 3x5 inch) was pixellated.
What did I do wrong?
thanks,
Rey
By Doug Nelson (doug) on Monday, July 02, 2001 - 01:20 am:
I suspect it was 3/4 of an inch, not 1/2 (1200 x 4 x 3/4 = 3600)
Using 'enlargement' is useless, even bad. At least it eats up unnecessary space, and at worst it can do a lousy enlargement job (which may be the problem here, or at least exaserbate it)
Results usually look better on the monitor. It's only 72dpi, has wonderful color (much better than any printer).
Instead of sending to Kodak, invest in a good inkjet printer if you can afford it. (has nothing to do with your problem, just generally good advice)
I have a 1/2 inch photo(1930) to be restored and enlarged.
What resolution should I scan it?
What considerations should i take?
By Doug Nelson (doug) on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 07:34 pm:
At that size there's probably not much resolution in the original. But I'd still scan it at your scanner's highest optical resolution (not interpolated). Scan in 16bit mode if you have that option available.
Even at 1200dpi (assuming you can scan that high) you're only going to have 600 total pixels to work with. That's about enough for a medium-quality 3x5 inch picture.
You're probably going to have to fake some resolution with a blur layer and experiment with blend modes.
By Tom George on Thursday, June 28, 2001 - 09:59 pm:
Rey; I have had a few of those tiny ones brought in by customers and have found that what Doug suggested just about covers all that can be said. I would add however that sometimes, and I stress sometimes, by using the Program Genuine Fractals it is possible to bump up the final size to around 5x6 or so without introducing unacceptable levels of artifact. Also converting to LAB color mode,sharpening the Lightness channel and possibly playing with the levels and curves at the same time and applying varying degrees of gaussian blur to the A and B channels can on occasion improve the overall look. hope some of this helps. good luck Tom
By Rey Mendoza on Friday, June 29, 2001 - 08:11 am:
Doug & Tom: Thank you very much for the quick reply. I did scan it at 1200 dpi and had fairly good results. I still have to experiment on the LAB color mode.
thanks again.
By Rey Mendoza on Sunday, July 01, 2001 - 05:27 pm:
I did scan the photo at 1200 dpi and the results was fairly good in the monitor. But there was one discrepancy, the pixels it generated was 3600 instead of 900 that you mentioned. and one more thing, I did scan it at 1200 dpi and set it to 400% enlargement (UMAX Vista Scan)
The restored output was 240MB tiff file. I burned it in a CD-ROM and brought it to Kodak for printing.
Still, the printed output (at 3x5 inch) was pixellated.
What did I do wrong?
thanks,
Rey
By Doug Nelson (doug) on Monday, July 02, 2001 - 01:20 am:
I suspect it was 3/4 of an inch, not 1/2 (1200 x 4 x 3/4 = 3600)
Using 'enlargement' is useless, even bad. At least it eats up unnecessary space, and at worst it can do a lousy enlargement job (which may be the problem here, or at least exaserbate it)
Results usually look better on the monitor. It's only 72dpi, has wonderful color (much better than any printer).
Instead of sending to Kodak, invest in a good inkjet printer if you can afford it. (has nothing to do with your problem, just generally good advice)
