I just got back some prints back from the lab and just wondering what the general consensus is on this. I'm still not sure which gives a better scan....the print itself or the negative? My scanner isn't the greatest, but it does have the ability to scan transparencies and negatives. Also what would you recommend for scanning resolution, I was thinking somewhere around 300 to 600 dpi? I want to get the best quality I can......any thoughts?

A good film scanner is always better than a good flatbed scanner. Although if you print your own images, flatbed might be the way to go. In all other cases, scanning film is the way to go. Labs often crop prints, **** ** colors and contrast, etc. So it's always better to scan the complete original....well, especially when the size of the print is smaller than what you want to scan. Film can withstand enlargments many times it's size, without loosing any detail. Prints don't. I work with a minolta dimage dual scan II film scanner, which gives me the ability to autofocus/auto exposure (nice when scanning film or framed slides....cause the film will be at a different position in the holder). Also have the ability to correct color balance and levels before scanning and some other stuff. Lemme see....I usually scan at 1400dpi input and 2800dpi output. That's the fastest/best quality balance for me....although if time doesn't matter much I love to scan them at 2800/2800 only with autofocus and then resize them to around 1000px width. (But what the resize options in photoshop, cause that makes a difference too). Hope that helps :)

1400!!!! Good grief. How large are the files!!!! Bsteph

They are around 30mb as tiff files, when I save them :) I have another folder for jpg's at a normal size :P

Thanks Rork, that does help. :~)

Yeah, but I forget to make backups all the time....hehe...I really need to make a backup soon :) KKKKNOCK ON WOOD!! ;)

looking at the amount of files & folders, I guess you're much better at organizing files than I am ;)

Alpha and ESPECIALLY DarkPen, man those are some sickeningly LARGE files. Dakpen, 64 files = 8someodd gigs??? that's beyond sick. ry can't wait for his new Athlon XP and 40gig hd with 512 sdram...

a dvd-r would be really nice eh Alpha and darkpen?

I"m not abundant with knowledge on this subject, but I recently purchased a Transparency Adapter for my scanner. I didnt have the money to spend on an actual negative scanner and so far this has suited me rather well. Its basically a flat lamp you sit on top of the bed of the scanner and it hooks up to the back. Instead of feeding the film into the scanner it comes with a negative holder protector thingy. Sorry for the lack of tech terms. It seems to be a happy medium between scanning prints and a neg. scanner. Sorry if this is repeated info! May

Attached Link: http://www01.bhphotovideo.com/default.sph/FrameWork.class?FNC=StartLink__Aindex_html___REFER

Negatives & chromes do not lie! You get exactly the shot you make (process troubles included). Chromes are great for the learning process, cause they have a very small tolerance with lighting conditions, so, if you watch them carefully, you can always improve your technique. And that's the point. Prints will always suffer the influence of your lab guy's evaluation, and sometimes he commits nasty mistakes. Anyway, film scanners have a greater hability to deal with the differences among light & dark zones, wich some flatbed insist to change in a hidden "auto-contrast"feature.

Mmm.. DVD-R.. I'm just waiting for the standards to merge before getting one. And I'm kinda cheating, that work folder is currently a bunch of smaller image files with a 7.5Gb full frames AVI. :) - darkpen

Well in my original post I said I have a flatbed with an adapter for negatives and transparencies already attached. So although I would love to go out and buy a film scanner, it won't fit in the budget right now....have to make due with what I have. I have previously attempted to scan color film negs and have had the worst results. Any film that has a deep orange color to it, scans with multi-colored streaks running through it. B&W film scans ok. I guess I'll try both prints and film and see what results I come upwith. Thanks to all of you for the info. I'm putting a film scanner on the list, but first I have to buy a new SLR camera so I can retire the old one I'm using now.

There was a thread here a while back about scanning color negatives and removing the orange mask. I've been using a utility from Hamrick Software - http://www.hamrick.com/ called VueScan, which does a real nice job. It's cheap. Check if it works with your equipment. [My slide/film scanner is an old Nikon LS-1000, which is a good scanner, but the software that came with it was pretty bad. The newer Nikon SW is supposed to be real good. No upgrade.] Let me know how the flatbed works out. I usually scan negatives at 2700ppi, and then scale in PShop.

Thanks for that link Misha.......I checked it out....figures my scanner is on the unsupported list. :~(