Epson 2400 scanner

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Paul Reeve

Hi all,

I have recently purchased a 2400, and wish to use it to scan slides as well
as prints/diagrams etc.

What would be the optimum resolution to set it to to get a print of (say) 6
x 4 or 7 x 5 or even 12 x 8? And should I set it at 48 or 24 bit colour -
presumably 48 bit?

Thanks for any info

Paul
 
Hi all,

I have recently purchased a 2400, and wish to use it to scan slides as well
as prints/diagrams etc.

What would be the optimum resolution to set it to to get a print of (say) 6
x 4 or 7 x 5 or even 12 x 8? And should I set it at 48 or 24 bit colour -
presumably 48 bit?

Thanks for any info

Paul
Click to expand...
Scan to get a pixel count of 300X the linear dimensions of the final print
size that you want ... to the maximum of the scanner or source material
quality.

I doubt that your printer will handle/need 48 bit, unless you have a
sophisticated continuous tone unit.
 
Thanks,

I keep reading about vuescan. Would anyone know if this would help (with
35mm slides)?

Paul
 
J. A. Mc. said:
Scan to get a pixel count of 300X the linear dimensions of the final print
size that you want ... to the maximum of the scanner or source material
quality.
Click to expand...
A very common recommendation and, unfortunately a poor general case.
|300ppi is about the worst possible file resolution to ask any Epson
printer to work with. Try to send the printer an integer division of
its native resolution, but keep it above 200ppi if it will be subjected
to close inspection. Epson desktop printers operate with a native
resolution of 720ppi - so either 240x, 360x, or 720x are ideal
resolutions to scan at if your output is on an Epson. If you don't know
what it will eventually be printed on then just use the highest optical
resolution of the scanner.
I doubt that your printer will handle/need 48 bit, unless you have a
sophisticated continuous tone unit.
Click to expand...
That isn't what 48-bit depth is there for! I *know* that your eyes
couldn't distinguish 48-bit colour even if your printer could reproduce
them!

As a rule of thumb, printing 1cm swatches of colour with 16-bits per
channel would cover half the surface area of Jupiter! And it would take
you several human generations crawling around on your hands and knees
just to see them all - and that doesn't include time for sleeping,
eating or any other biologically necessary functions! Then you have to
call up the spirit of your long deceased great, great, great grandaddy
from the hereafter in some voodoo witchcraft ceremony just to find out
if colour 271474976710656 is actually different from colour 2978836480!
;-)

So don't try to kid anyone that you have evolved this super-human vision
capability that is only limited by what Microsoft or Adobe send to the
print drivers!

48-bit colour is there for a reason - it will help you pull out the
detail in the shadows without sacrificing the highlights ot vice versa,
so it depends on how much post processing you want to do with your scans
as to whether it is necessary or not. A properly exposed and gamma
corrected scan should not need any more than 8-bits per channel (24-bit
colour) and there has been at least one challenge issued for anyone to
show that this is not the case. It is still outstanding as far as I
know. But sometimes the most interesting part of the image just isn't
captured by the automatic settings, so extra bits help you adjust the
image to how you like it after the scan.
 
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