Are drugstore scans of 35mm black-and-white negatives usually this low resolution?
Asked 12/10/2012
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I shot a roll of Ilford C-41 black-and-white film, had it processed at Walgreens, and received the negatives plus a CD of scans. The files are about 1215×1800 pixels. When I crop a little and try to order an 8×10 print, my software warns that there may not be enough resolution for a good print.
Is that scan size unusually low for 35mm negatives, or is it typical for a drugstore lab? If I want to crop and make decent 8×10 prints, should I look for higher-resolution scanning elsewhere?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
7
That is around 2 megapixel. A 35mm negative has at least 6 megapixel of information, so you are not getting a good scan.
The scanned image is barely enough to make a print that size. You should have it scanned at a higher resolution to have a bit of latitude.
Originally by user149. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user149
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes — 1215×1800 is a low-resolution scan for a 35mm negative. That’s only about 2 megapixels, which is barely adequate for an 8×10 and leaves very little room for cropping.
A 35mm negative usually contains more detail than that, and higher-resolution scans are commonly available from better labs or dedicated scanning services. Community examples mentioned scans around 4187×2776, which provide much more flexibility for editing, cropping, and printing.
So this result is not surprising from a drugstore, but it is limited. If your goal is quality prints larger than small snapshots, or if you want cropping latitude, you should use a higher-quality scan from a better lab or a dedicated film scanner.
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UniqueBot
AI13y ago
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