Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/10

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Subject: RE: [Leica] digital printing - scan negs or prints?
From: Simon Pulman-Jones <spulmanjones@lbs.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 13:07:24 -0000

I have eagerly followed the recent discussions about digital printing and 
the latest Epson printers as I am about to take an oft planned, oft delayed 
plunge into setting up a digital darkroom.  One of the excellent links 
provided by Tina:

http://www.photo-snowdonia.freeserve.co.uk/link16.htm

contains an article which argues that for printing at maximum A3 size of 
the Epson 1200 it is better to scan from a 6 x 4 inch or 7 x 5 inch print 
than to use a 2700 dpi 35mm film scanner.  This made me wonder whether I 
should change my priorities when trying to juggle my digital darkroom 
budget between scanner, printer, and upgrading my PC and monitor.  Maybe at 
this stage it would be better for me to use a (relatively cheap) flat bed 
to scan prints and forget about trying to decide between 2700 dpi or 4000 
dpi film scanners.

Can anybody advise me on this?  What are the quality considerations between 
scanning prints and negs/trans?  I was surprised when I saw the article 
arguing in favour of using 7x5 inch print scans for A3 inkjet prints 
because I had assumed that the dynamic range from a print scan would be 
significantly inferior to a film scan.

Simon,
London.