So you’re ready to get your prints, slides, or negatives scanned and bring them back to life in this new digital age? Wonderful! The next thing that you need to consider is what resolution you would like the images scanned at, and this can be a confusing question–I know because it’s one of the questions I answer most here, and hopefully this handy guide make it all a little bit more clear.
The most common question about resolution is “Which is better?” or the closely related “Higher resolution is better, right?” And the truth is that one resolution is not better than the other–they are simply different sizes. The resolutions on our pricing page (http://www.scandigital.com/price.php) describe the number of DPI (Dots Per Inch–also sometimes called PPI: pixels per inch). That actually gives a lot of information once you understand that it’s purely a measurement–to illustrate, I’ll describe this out with a standard 4 inch by 6 inch photograph:
Let’s start with our standard resolution 300dpi–once we’re done there will be 300 pixels per inch of photograph, so if we scanned a 1 inch by 1 inch section it would hold 900 pixels total (because Length x Width = the Area of a shape–and you thought you’d never use that again after school). So the total pixel dimension of the .jpeg image that we scan from the photo will be 1200 x 1800 pixels (which believe it or not is close the size of many monitors’ desktops–it’s a pretty big digital image)
So what does this scan allow us to do? Well for one, it will give you an exact 4×6 print of the image making it an exact 1:1 copy of the original photograph, which is awesome! Unless you would like a bigger photograph, then it is slightly less awesome (but not by much).
This is where the higher resolution choice comes in to save the day. An example of a 4inch x 6inch photo scanned at 600dpi is exactly the same as the previous example–except doubled. Each inch of the photograph is scanned to hold 600 pixels so the final dimensions of the digital image will be 2400 pixels x 3600 pixels– a staggering total of 8640000 pixels in the entire .JPEG! With that many pixels you would be able to print out an 8 x 10 inch print of that image–quite a bit bigger than the original 4 x 6.
All of these same principles apply negatives as well since there is quite a bit of enlarging with any negative for any print or scan and the math isn‘t quite so cookie-cutter clean.
A 35mm negative (which is what most people are familiar with and think of when people say “negatives”) measures 24 x 36mm, or 0.94 inches x 1.41 inches, which means that the scanned image will be close to 2000 x 3000 pixels. With a .jpeg this size, you have a few print options–this size could easily be printed as a 4×6 inch print and up to an 8 x 10 inch print. And just like in the previous example, a 4000dpi scan would double the size that you can print the .jpeg at.
Now that you know a little bit more about what the resolutions mean–how do you know which you want to select for your order? Well it all boils down to a simple question: What would you like to do with your digital images once you have them? If you would like to email pictures to your friends and family, or create a slide show on your computer, or even play the images through your DVD player if it allows it–then our standard resolution is perfect for you! However if you would like all of those options and the ability take these scans and create the largest print possible, then you would like to consider our highest resolution options.
I hope this has cleared a few things up, and as always, we’re happy to answer any other questions through email, live chat, or over the phone.