Big print from 35mm velvia

I thought I would share my supprise with this little experiment I did. I did a car shoot a couple of weeks ago using Velvia 100 in my pentax 35mm (posted on apug). The slides look great, my little gems. Anyway I wondered how big I could get this image to print out on our Epson 9600 at work. So I scanned the slide on my all in one printer scanner (Epson CX7800) at 2400 ppi. Then I uped the resoulution in PS to 4990 (about the same as a 16 megapixel camera) using the Bicubic Smooth command. Sharpened just a little and then printed it. I could go all the way to 33x22 and it looked clear and sharp! I was amazed at what sort of results you can get with a cheap $140 scanner.

That was fun, now I want a new scanner.

D.

The best is yet to come

Derek, congratulations on your results. OTOH, sharp is in the eye of the beholder and the differences you will see in prints made from your slide with more capable scanners will amaze you even more than your initial results.

For exhibition quality from 35mm you should scan with either a high end scanner or a film scanner such as the Nikon 9000. Even then, you are pushing the realm of the possible when you think about printing larger than 11x14 ... that is if you are going to print for the normal viewer who, rather than standing at 'normalviewing distance' insists on moving up and sticking his/her nose into the print. This is not meant to denigrate your initial results at all .... just to point out how much better you can do in the future.

You can do amazing things with tiney high res film (Kodachrome 25 being one that I've blown-up to 12' on the long edge) and a good/great scan.

having said that, there are stellar things being doen with large peices of film and great scans/scanners. See Art's post regarding Andreas Gursky as an example.

Well, certanly there will be better results from a better scanner. I also realize that it is only 35mm. I have been comparing the quality of my scans to a friends Mark IIDs images. Of course there are many variables but my $300 rig and $120 scanner hold it's own with the $4,000+ rig he has. I was just sort of farting around to see how far I could push my results with as little $$ as possible.

D.