Re: filmscanners: Film Scanner Question Again

["Rob Geraghty" <harper@wordweb.com>]

"Rick Decker" <rickdecker@hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
> I have 3 parameters on my 1640SU scanner - "Source Size" , "Target Size"
> and "DPI".  The manual tells me to "Increase Resolution" as I increase
> Target Size.

Anyone else have an Epson flatbed who can comment?  Scanner manufacturers
seem to make things needlessly complicated with settings like this.

I can't remember what the maximum "real" ppi of the 1640 is, Rick, but
essentially
you want to scan so you're getting that maximum.  You don't want to exceed
it
or you're just getting interpolated data, and you don't want to scan at less
or
you're not making the most of the scanner's resolution.  OK, I just checked
the
Epson site.  The 1640 is 1600ppi.  If you scan a 1 inch square off a frame
of
film, you'll get 1600x1600 pixels.  Print that at 300dpi and the image will
be
5.3" x 5.3".  If you use the 3200ppi mode of the scanner one dimension is
interpolated, but that would give you twice the print size without
resampling.
In my past experience there's little improvement in data once you get to the
smaller
of the ppi limits of a flatbed (1600ppi in this case).

Hope that's some help!

Rob