Am I the only one who scans their 35mm negs at too low a dpi?

I just spent an hour re-scanning a bunch of old rolls from last year because I realized I was only doing them at 1200 dpi. My buddy pointed out that for printing anything bigger than a 4x6 you really need 2400 or even 3200. I pulled up an old shot of a rusty fence in Portland and zoomed in on the 1200 version vs the new 2400 one and the grain was way sharper. It made a huge difference for posting online too because I could crop in without it getting all blurry. Has anyone else found a sweet spot for dpi that works for both sharing and small prints?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_green841mo ago

1200 is fine for web sharing but yeah, for prints you really need to push it. I stick with 2400 for everything now because it gives me the flexibility to crop a bit and still get a good 8x10 if I want. Anything over 3200 just bogs down my computer and the file sizes get out of hand for no real gain.

pipera501mo ago

Wait, @iris_green84 are you scanning everything at 2400? I do 1200 for most stuff and only bump it up if I'm planning a big print. My old laptop cries when I try to handle 2400 files on the regular.