On Thu, 06 Sep 2001 17:04:43 -0400 SKID Photography (skid@bway.net) wrote:
> Every magazine we have worked for insists on at least 300 dpi in any
> digital image (this includes the 'majors'
> like Time).
Absolutely my experience too. 300dpi@repro size has become a standard
requirement, although it is definitely higher than necessary for an
acceptable Q factor with 150-180lpi repro. I guess they like to leave
themselves a little headroom.
> > Large enlargements of 35mm film are more likely to be limited by the
> > grain
> > structure of the film than by the resolution of the scan.
>
> After going round and round on this subject on the colorsync list, the
> consensus seemed to be that the
> limitation in enlarging (via scans) 35mm film is the 'noise' in the
> scan, not the grain.
Agreed, grain and sharpness are not usually a problem. IME noise is a
significant issue alright, but I believe it is aliasing arising during
resampling at the imagewriter.
I have seen this happen with my own work, where a scan with definitely
smooth tonality and no grain aliasing acquires a sandpaper grittiness
during repro. If the scan exhibits any grain aliasing or significant CCD
noise it is even worse.
I believe that bicubic interpolation to the 12,000ppi which magazine repro
houses are used to handling, before sending the scan to the imagewriter,
would avoid this entirely.
Half the trouble is that the client is closer to the repro house, and
confronted with repro problems and schedules, ignorance about this new tech
and years of confidence in old tech, the photographer gets the blame for
changing the parameters. I had a whole series of scans trashed like this a
few months ago, and despite the art ed and editor having seen for
themselves on screen that quality was good and 'loved the pictures', nobody
seemingly wanted to undertake the task of thinking through what had
happened and devising workarounds. The postmortem seems to have concluded
'we must have the film', I haven't heard from them again.
>When we find ourselves in a situation where it makes
> more sense to shoot in 35mm format, we
> shoot color neg., and then hand in 11x14 prints (to scan from), thereby
> bypassing the noise issue.
Same here. It is ridiculous.
Significantly, IMO, I never have this problem with sectors other than
magazines. Smaller more flexible repro houses seem to manage to avoid these
problems. But then scanning is the bread and butter of magazine repro
companies.
Regards
Tony Sleep
- Online portfolio & exhibit; + film scanner info
& comparisons
