Q&A: What’s the Best DPI or Resolution to Scan Your Film Negatives?
“Hi there. Since you have and use an Epson Perfection V600 I wanted to ask you what is the optimal scan settings for scanning film negatives?
Right now I use 12800 dpi, but I have a feeling it's overkill and all my indoor night time pictures have a lot of grain. I certainly appreciate whatever advice you have to offer.”
Walter, thanks for writing me. Let me see if I can help you out with this one.
First off, you're right — I am currently scanning all of my photos with the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner. I have been listing all of my favorite hardware, software, and products on my Photo Scanning Resources page. I started this page to let you all know about all of my favorite “scanning things” I have discovered and use.
I would say your gut feeling is right on — 12800 dpi is going to be overkill for negatives (film and slides). Hopefully, you haven't scanned too many of them already in case you now want to do them over.
12800 dpi is the “maximum interpolated resolution” that our Epson V600 scanners will scan. But this is interpolated, which is a fancy way of saying “digital.” The scanner actually only scans up to 9600 dpi (the optical resolution). But using some technical “magic”, the software takes the 9600 dpi image and creates a higher resolution scan out of it.
If you've used some of the point-and-shoot digital cameras that have come out in the last ten years, you know many of them have an “optical” zoom rating. Once you have zoomed in all the way, the actual glass lens no longer comes out any further. But, many still zoom in even tighter, and that's because it's digitally pushing into the pixels to make the image “look” closer.
That's basically what the scanner is doing as well when it's using this digital (Interpolated) resolution. All it's really doing is blowing up the pixels and cropping the image around it. The image quality doesn't get better — really only worse.
So, my suggestion to anyone is never to go beyond the optical resolution of your scanner. So at the highest, with the Epson V600 don't scan your prints, slides or negatives above 9600 dpi.
But, even that is overkill and you will see not only a massively huge file size, but also too much grain when scanning film. Computers these days are fast enough to handle the file size, but the additional grain isn't so good.
What's Is the Best DPI to Scan your Film Negatives and Slides?
I like to keep it simple and break people down into 2 categories. Those with basic goals, and those with advanced goals.
If you are scanning your negatives to just have some nice pictures, but you don't really care about getting them perfect, or your computer is fairly old and you don't want large file sizes for example, then 2000 dpi is just fine. This will make average people happy.
If however, you really want to do it the right way — you really want to archive the best quality of the image that you possibly can so you can pass them down to your family someday, then I would recommend going with a dpi between 3000 dpi – 4000 dpi.
If you try 4000 dpi and you feel there is too much grain, work your way down to 3000 dpi. But, I wouldn't go any lower than 3000 if you really want to archive a high quality film scan.
And if even 4000 dpi seems to low for you, and you really want to try going a little higher — if it will make you sleep at night going a bit more — maybe try up to 5000 dpi and see if it introduces much more grain in your images.
Now Walter, I suggested dpi's exceeding 4000 dpi going up to 5000 dpi for you because you seem to be fairly aggressive in the amount of DPI you are willing to work with. (Just know that those dpi's will produce considerably large file sizes)
However, I feel most people with “advanced goals” should stick between the 3000 dpi – 4000 dpi range with their film negatives and slides.
Personally, I have chosen to scan my slides at 3200 dpi, a “preset number” that is easy to select in my scanning software. And with this setting, my slides end up being around 70-80 MB's (megabytes) a piece.
It's not specifically about negatives — it's really mainly on prints — but I wrote a long post on my site about the best DPI to scan paper photographs that you might like to read if you want more information. Right in the middle of the article is the section on Optical DPI vs Digital with our scanner that you might find interesting. Here's the link:
And, coincidentally, I recently wrote “Scanning Your Film Negatives vs. Prints: An Interesting Comparison” about a photo I had scanned at a scanning service recently. I had the print and the negative of the same photo scanned at the same time and I found some really interesting differences.
Thanks again for writing me. Please let me know how this works out for you. Seriously.
Thanks Walter! Cheers!
Curtis Bisel
Having the later v850 which is better I should point out that the true optical performance is much less that 3000ppi. Ive compared it to my old Nikon LS2000 which scans at a max of 2700ppi. This shows more detail compared to higher scans on the Epson. Guessing the Epson compares mire to 2400ppi. Having said that for larger prints scanning at a higher resolution may have some advantages but don’t expect much. Nite the Epsons are fine for larger formats but gives poor results for 35mm. I get better results using a camera (Nikon D800 & ES-2 neg/slide duplicator).
Have you tried increasing the aspect ratio to 2:1 and 3:1 when using your Nikon D800? You might get higher resolution. This article prompted me to ask that question. https://www.addicted2light.com/2012/11/29/how-to-scan-films-using-a-digital-camera/?v=dd07de856139
I am looking a scanning my negatives to digital for a presentation on a screen approximately 20- feat by 10ft. I will need to scan 35mm negatives as well as 120 (larger negative) What would you suggest to be the best DPI for each type of negative
I am at the very beginning of a self publishing project. I am scanning images from negs and print format on a wide bed Epson 4990.
The first image scans were made just yesterday. I want to do it properly from the start…but fear I am overdoing the file size. I am scanning up to 6 negatives at a time. The negatives are from box camera size film…about 2.4 x 4.28”. Am scanning at resolution 2400 pixels per inch. Each file is approx. 900 MB.
-Am I scanning at too high a resolution? Or too low?
-If saving the file for publishing, should it be no larger than 300dpi?
I am working in Photoshop, with which I am very familiar. But have only printed my own, fine art images from digital camera files.
Perhaps you could point me to some reading.
I’m just getting started on scanning slides and film from my college days back in the 70’s. Most were shot with a 35mm camera. Very rough estimate would be just under 5,000 slides. I will probably need to hone my strategy as I go, but wondering if I should:
1. Scan at a high enough resolution on the first run-through to be able to get as good an 8×10 as possible out of any of them (except for the obvious duplicates, etc.) That way I’ll have them archived and could do the 8×10 at any time even if the films deteriorate.
2. Scan at resolution for 5×7 to get them in and then go back through and make the 8×10 scans of the ones that matter. Knowing the way I shot, I think that could cut the number by half at least.
Just in general, what resolution would be good enough for posting on the web? Giving a slide-show on my 4K TV?
Sorry if this is a bit unfocused, but as I said I’m just getting started. Thanks for your understanding.
Note: using an Epson V370.
Computer storage is not an issue.
Some rough calcs:
At 4800 DPI, 24-Bit color: 5,000 slides x 2 mins/slide = 10,000 minutes = 167 hours – not TOO bad.
Uncompressed TIFF: 80MB x 5,000 images = 400GB – acceptable
Coffee: At LEAST 10lbs! 🙂
Ken
If I have a beautiful Kodachrome 35 mm slide. I want to scan it and print it for a gallery show for sale. Besides the DPI discussion, how big of print can I make that will have some definition, contrast and sharpness?
I believe colour slides have a much lower definition than silver negatives – see a discussion lower down on ‘dye clouds’. As said there, there is no point in scanning at a higher resolution than the patches of dye. I suggest you project the slide as normal on to a matt white wall and make it as big as you can with an acceptable resolution from the distance you assume people will be standing, and then measure the width of the projected image. Then assume this is an image at 300 dpi, calculate how many dots that makes the width, and then divide that number of pixels by the actual width of the slide in inches to give the desired scanning DPI.
A further point – I have had colour slides re-photographed, and they loose dynamic range badly. Detail in the shadows and highlights is lost. Apparently colour slides have a much higher dynamic range than prints from negatives. This may apply to scanning as well.
I always scan negatives and slides at 16 bits per channel (48 bits). Then it’s much easier to adjust exposure in Lightroom without doing bad things (saturating high or low). You could get the same effect by using a DSLR, but you would have to shoot RAW in order to preserve dynamic range.
I am pondering what DPI to scan my 35mm colour slides at, and then what JPEG compression to use. All here is very interesting, but I wondered what the original camera optical system was capable of. The Wikipedia article on ‘Depth of Focus’ has an interesting section on the ‘Circle of (acceptable) Confusion’ of a lens. For 35mm cameras this is apparently taken to be 1/30 mm, ie 762 DPI. So a 35mm camera lens is apparently designed to produce a 762 DPI image.
What then is the point in scanning such a negative at more than 762 DPI?
yes, please. I am also trying to understand… the point of 3000-4000 dpi when others say 2000 is sufficient. and it seems others say things like Apple say the eye can only see up to somewhere in the 300’s.
As far as I understood, scanning at 300 DPI will scan 300 dots per inch and since a 35mm film is 1.4 inch wide, this will produce an image of 420 pixels wide: 300 x 1.4. Not very sharp. So scanning at 762 DPI will produce an image of 1066 pixels wide, still not very sharp. Scanning at the DPI recommended by this article will produce an image of 4480 pixels wide. Now that is a quality I can work with.
My Canon 5D mark ii produces images of 5616 x 3744 pixels, so 4000 DPI would be required to produce a scanned image that approaches this quality. And therefore 4000 DPI is my personal minimum required DPI setting for any scanned image (although I sometimes scan at less DPI to speed up the process: I can always rescan the best ones at a higher DPI setting later).
I really doubt that 762 DPI can be the designed or intended resolution of 35mm. Because any original 35mm slide can “blown up” to wall size proportions, and I believe that is not possible at 762 DPI (not without seeing all the dots in the picture).
Not sure if this thread is dead or not!
But anyways, I was wondering if my Brother MFC J460DW which has a scanning resolution of up to 19200 x 19200 dpi, this being interpolated. (I have utterly no clue what this really means.) I assume the best way is to try right? And 2400 x 1200 dpi being optical. Thanks guys!
optical is the max. interpolated is digital zoom. this is explained in this article if you care to read it all the way through.
Why do a lot of shops near me scan negatives at 300dpi if you’re saying to do 2000+dpi? Do you mean to be using the terms PPI instead of DPI?
Jon, 300 dpi is a very standard setting that many scanning services use to scan paper prints for the basic cost. Then, for those that want to pay more (usually) many services offer to scan paper prints at 600 dpi.
I would be really surprised if there’s a scanning service that wants to scan your negatives at 300 dpi. That would come out really really small in resolution. Maybe 3000 dpi… but not 300.
And DPI and PPI, are basically interchangeable. One stands for “dots” per inch, the other “pixels” per inch. When we are talking about digital images, pixels is really what we want to refer to them as, but so many scanning applications out there refer to “dots” per inch, that someone like myself has to often use DPI here and there, so that it’s not too confusing for those using their scanning software for the first time, who look up and see that “DPI” setting and wonder what it means.
Curtis,
I very rarely leave comments on websites but I stumbled upon your site this evening and felt compelled to let you know how much I appreciate you having taken the time to write your blogs. I am expecting my V600 to arrive tomorrow and in preparation, I have read your excellent blogs on optimum settings for prints, negatives and your comparison between the two types of media. Thank you.
Roy
Thanks so much Roy! So glad to hear I’ve been of help to you. :coffee:
Hello there. Great article!
I was hoping you might be able to provide me with a bit of guidance in a project I’ve undertaken. A friend of mine has a large collection of old slides that he would like converted to electronic format for the purposes of showing the pictures and images projected on large screens while teaching class.
First, I was wondering if saving the files as uncompressed Tiff images is the way to go.
Second, I was wondering if scanning at 48-bit color is actually achieving anything, or if 24-bit would provide just as good of a result.
Third, what should I put as the Target Size? Up til now, I have had that setting on the default setting of “Original”. Is this correct? Or, will I need to bump it up to something much larger in order to allow these images to be viewed at optimal quality while being projected on large screens.
Thank you kindly in advance for your feedback and guidance!!!
Jen Baker
Oh, PS – I too am using an Epson Perfection V600 scanner. 🙂
2 months and no reply 🙁
Hi Jen. My feedback would be that unless you are really concerned about retaining all the scanned detail in an image I would just use JPEG. TIFF provides lossless compression so after decompressing you are back to an exact copy of the original. This is not the case with JPEG. Realistically unless you do lots of changes to the image and then save and reopen the saved image you are not going to have a problem with JPEGs. Most of the time the only change you will be making will be one off from my experience which may be some cropping, rotation and maybe brightness and contrast changes all done at once then you are done and save it. JPEG will save lots of hard drive space compared to TIFF. It will also save a lot of waiting for the computer unless you are rediting the same image say more than 5 times.
This reediting also answers your question about 24 vs 48 bit. As this doubles the storage for each “channel” – there are 3 – you are going to end up with some really large file sizes. Roughly 6x larger than 24 bit for 48 bit. Unless you have a SSD (solid state drive) in your machine I would stick to 24 bit. Once again 48 bit will only help where the image is being edited say over 100 times. It essentially helps stops multiple rounding errors affecting the image from post processing work.
For target size I always use the actual image size. All picture viewing software allows you to determine the “display size” usually as a percentage (ie. 400%) or by dimensions. To my knowledge by using the actual size of the slide etc you are beg true to the image size. My negatives from the 35mm camera are therefore stored as 24mm x 36mm approx.
Geoffrey Brown
Te Puke, NZ
Hi, I love your site. Thank you!
I am in the process of scanning binders filled with old B&W xeroxed copies fliers from an artist’s archives to preserve them and also to publish many of them.
Do you have any recommendations for DPI and bit depth for this project?
I also have the V600. I have been scanning them as 8-bit Grayscale at 600 dpi jpgs…..
Thanks!
Michael LaBash
I have an Epson V500 scanner which has an optical resolution around 6800ppi. Before doing some scanning scanned some negatives of different ISOs at 4800ppi and looked to see how big the colour clouds were in comparison to the pixels. The colour clouds are developed from the exposed silver halide in the film and then the silver is removed using a bleaching process just leaving the colour clouds. Anyway this results in the colour clouds being about 10x larger than the silver particles that absorbed the light. In other words colour negative film will always need to be scanned at lower resolution than B+W film that directly uses the silver particles to form the image. Anyway after spending about 3 days looking at the scans these are my conclusions….
ISO FILM TYPE SCAN RESOLUTION I USE
———————————————————————————
1000 Kodak Gold mostly 1200ppi
400 Kodak Gold mostly 1200ppi
200 Kodak Gold mostly 1200ppi
100 Kodak Gold mostly 2400
100/125 Kodak Ektar/Royal Gold 4800
50 Any film type (eg. Agfa) 4800
25 Kodak Ektar 25 6400
It seems hard to get such a table from anyone based on what the “negative is capable of” but these are my conclusions based on visual observations. I believe the 1000 ppi is still too high but I have little of this so could not be bothered spending lots of time on it but I suspect 800ppi may be enough.
Past these ppi values all I believe you are doing is getting more pixels of the same dye cloud in the film with no useful added image value.
I believe we can also categorize most positive prints at around 300dpi. Given a 35mm negative is about 1.5″ x 1.0″ this means that ISO 200 to 1000 have a maximum useful print size of 4x this so 6″ x 4″. Only when lower ISOs are used is it realistically possible to get a bigger print without grain becoming a major factor.
For the contrast and speed Ektar 100/125 offers this is my favourite film which I have ordered more of.
Geoffrey Brown, Te Puke, NZ
I believe it is possible that Kodak Ektar 25 may be able to be scanned beyond 6800ppi but my scanner wont go higher and as previous posts have said it is pointless going beyond the optical resolution of the scanner or the stepper motor capability that moves the sensor. For the V500 I believe the optical resolution is 4800ppi and the stepper motor can move at 6800ppi so my ultimate limit is 4800ppi x 6800ppi.
In the comment above I should have said “I believe the 1000 ISO film…is still too high…”. This would mean that 1000ISO film is really incapable of producing nice 6″ x 4″ prints which would also be my opinion based on past use.
Geoffrey, Te Puke, NZ
My question relates more to the file format. What do you recommend? I have advanced goals and am reluctant to use JPEG due to compression. I am assuming that RAW would be the best. What about TIFF? Let’s assume that I’m not too concerned about file size but more about quality. I use iPhoto, so the file format needs to be compatible and I also want to output to an iPad.
The only negatives I ever scanned, I did using the Mac PICT format, and while iPhoto has no problem with them, they won’t sync to my iOS devices.
Hi Jason. I have always been all about TIFF. But not all TIFF, just the uncompressed variety (you can save out a compressed TIFF as well). Yes, the file size can get big, upwards of 80 MB’s for a 48bit scan of a slide for example, but it’s not an issue at all now that multiple terabyte drives and fast processors are very affordable. And TIFF works just fine in Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture non-destructive image managers, so no worries there.
A friend of mine, Art Taylor, who posts a lot of comments on this website has told me a fair amount about scanning and saving out images as “RAW”. You can’t do this with just any scanning software, or file format, but if you use VueScan Pro and save in the DNG format, it’s my understanding you can replicate what it’s like shooting in RAW mode on a DSLR. I’ve teased him a long time now that I would look into trying this method out, and sadly I just haven’t made the time for it yet. But trust me, I want to!
Now once you start pushing photos to your iPad, I would strongly consider you use the power of your non-destrucive image manager to convert those uncompressed images to a compressed (file size) format like PNG or JPG that will match the resolution of your iPad screen, or larger if you plan on zooming in on them in some photo application on your iPad. I haven’t tried it, but I believe a TIFF will display on an iPAD, it’s just that since they are rather large, they might slow down a slower iPAD and really take up all of your storage space.
I should have clarified that I meant uncompressed TIFF.
Do you mean to say that you scan to TIFF, edit in an image editor, then export to JPEG and put the JPEGs in your photo-management app? What do you do with the TIFFs? Do you store them in the file system, outside of an app?
I personally have chosen to scan and save as uncompressed Tiff files. Then I import those into my photo managing program Aperture. Inside of Aperture, I can now do all of the “non-destructive” editing I want to the photos — like cropping, color correcting, dust and scratch removal etc. And edits I make aren’t written over the master image, they are instead saved as “changes” or updates to the image in a database of sorts. Then, if I want to put any of those (master) images on my iPad, or email them to someone, I select the photos in one one of many ways, and I export them out. This process of exporting, whether I am literally doing an “export” (file > export), or whether I have just selected a photo and I hit share (email to someone), or sync them through iTunes, it’s still does the same thing. It gives me the ability to take photos out of Aperture in a more compressed state. So my photos are then converted by Aperture from the huge master Tiff files, and are converted into smaller JPG files for example.
The Mac Non-Destructive Mac photo managers iPhoto and Aperture actually give you the choice (which is really cool!) of whether you want to store your photos inside a photo library folder (Apple calls them “photo libraries”), or outside of the photo library stored wherever you want on your hard drive. I have all of my digital camera photos stored inside a library file as of now, but I’ve chosen to store all of my scanned analog photos outside of the library as “referenced” images. This way, I can easily load them up into another application like Lightroom etc without dealing with the problem of the masters being “locked up” inside of a library file.
If you choose to store images inside the managed photo libraries, Apple is trying to protect those files for you, and therefore it’s more of a challenge when you do want other programs to access them. But, Aperture makes it really easy to move your master images inside or outside of the library file if you should ever change your mind and decided you want to store them in the other manner.
Do you have any more specific recommendations about dpi for different film sizes? I have lots of sizes negatives and slides in my family history pile. I am not even sure what to call them. I thought some were medium format but they were just a tiny bit too tall to fit in the holder that came with the scanner. I had to make my own negative holder. They are about 2.5 inches X 4.5 inch sheets. It would be easier for me to know what you were talking about in your answer if you use inches to describe the negative size since I don’t know the names for most of the strange negatives I have. I know you probably would want to scan tiny 110 film at a higher resolution than giant medium format but that still does not help me. I want to be able to preserve the family archive as carefully and as well as it is possible to do at home. So far I have only scanned one of the big negatives at 3200 dpi. The file size was 308.7 mb but it would not open in Paperport, the program I use to store my scans. It did open in photo shop though and looked ok. Before I scan more I want to feel confident that I am doing it right. I really liked the chart you included in the other article about scanning the paper photos. That chart confirmed what I was already doing with the prints. Another chart like that for negatives would be great. Thanks.
MF retains a lot of info, probably you are good with 1600 DPI, also he used metric because inches are only used in Large formats like 4 by 5 inches and 8 by 10 inches which are much more scarce and you would need a really high end scanner to scan, the best course of action for those would be to use a macro lens and a DSLR with a light box. The standard formats are all 6 cm or 2 1/2″ high by 4.5cm, 6 cm, 7 cm, 8cm and 9 cm wide, I think yours might be 6 by 9 or there was a much older sheet format that was used instead of 6 by 9 in some press cameras that was 2.5″ by 4″ I think, use the same recommendations as the other medium formats, also you might have a problem getting a negative holder with an old format like that one.