best bet for scanning prints?

I need to scan some prints (and edit or whatever), so that my final product is an 8 bit greyscale. My scanner can be set to do this from the start. Am I best off doing it that way or scanning my usual way (color, 48) and editing in Elements (all I've got)? Or somewhere in between? I don't have the time or money to buy any new programs. The scanner is an Epson 4870 and the computer is a Macbook Pro with Elements 4.0 for Mac.

winger said:

I need to scan some prints (and edit or whatever), so that my final product is an 8 bit greyscale. My scanner can be set to do this from the start. Am I best off doing it that way or scanning my usual way (color, 48) and editing in Elements (all I've got)? Or somewhere in between? I don't have the time or money to buy any new programs. The scanner is an Epson 4870 and the computer is a Macbook Pro with Elements 4.0 for Mac.

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IF you are scanning toned prints scanning in color will be required, as a matter of fact I think that is the best way to scan monochrome prints as grayscale scans don't reflect the real color of the printed image and paper base.

THe 4870 should work fine and so will Elements, though you didn't say what your final output will be or how it will be used.

Don Bryant

The final output has to be an 8 bit greyscale file on CD. It's for a contest entry. When I scan my prints for my usual uses (posting on Apug and others, my website, etc..), I scan as color. But they want greyscale for this.

8 bit greyscale is pretty sucky, 16 bit is better and RGB at 8bits is better still. When i scan prints I put black foam core on the back and a heavy book on the foam core. If I want them to look there best I scan them @ 2x the target res and spot the hell out of them scale them down in multiple steps, run USM and spot again. On the flip side I haven't scanned prints in some time and don't use USM much any more, except in LAB on the L channel. If they need to be greyscale you might try a high pass sharneing layer ( create a copy of the background; limit the curve on the copy to the middle 50%; run the 'high pass' filter on the copy; and blend using Soft light).

winger said:

I need to scan some prints (and edit or whatever), so that my final product is an 8 bit greyscale. My scanner can be set to do this from the start. Am I best off doing it that way or scanning my usual way (color, 48) and editing in Elements (all I've got)? Or somewhere in between? I don't have the time or money to buy any new programs. The scanner is an Epson 4870 and the computer is a Macbook Pro with Elements 4.0 for Mac.

Click to expand...

If the original print is colour, then scan in 48 bit colour, you can use the channel mixer or channel mixer plugin to get black and white, this allows you to shift the colours to get a better black and white image. This is like a black and white photographer using a coloured filter to change the image colours to get a better black and white image. If you have a favourite black and white film, you can emulate the colour response of that film. I don't know about Elements 4.0, I use The Gimp V 2.4.5, and I know there is a black and white script-fu (a type of plugin) for it, that let you emulate a particular film, with a certain filter on the "camera"

If your original is black and white, then scan at 16 bit grey scale.

Work in 16 bit as far as you can, the last step, even after sharpening should be to convert to 8 bit grey-scale.

If you want a good photo manipulating program, The Gimp is quite good, and you can't beat the price (free download) click Here for the Mac OS-X version. The learning curve is quite steep, but you can do anything with it, that you can with Photoshop. If you want some links to howto sites or want help with it, PM me.