hi-res scan worth it

**srobb** · 01-31-2006, 10:09 AM

for a small photo contest? A friend that has seen my work gave me a copy of a local co-op magazine that is having a photo contest. I am going to be looking through my stuff to see what I have to use plus I will be taking new pics to use.

My question is this; in the rules they state to use as high a resolution image as possible, but they have a file size limit of less than 1MB. What kind of resolution should be used and would it be worth it to have some high-res scans made of the images I plan on using?

Any help is appreciated.

**Sebastian** · 01-31-2006, 10:44 AM

Just to give you an idea, a file out of a 10D saved as a quality 10 JPG can come in around 700-900k for the entire 3000x2000 file. Have as high a res scan as you can made and just save/resize to get the best quality/filesize ratio and send it in. There are no settings that anyone can recommend, it's really up to you to figure out what you want to do with the file once you get it.

**srobb** · 01-31-2006, 11:52 AM

Thanks, Seb. I know there are scanners out there like the 5400 CoolScan. I don't know if that is what some labs would have. May need to call my new lab and see what they would be able to do it at.

**ajuk** · 01-31-2006, 03:35 PM

I took some photos at a wedding for a friend in early December, but all I got was the cost of Film and Proccessing. I did it mainly for the expirience.

**Asylum Steve** · 01-31-2006, 04:26 PM

Yeah, like Seb says, 1mb is a lot of space to work with for a final jpeg...

I think you'd still be better off with as large a scan as is feasable for your computer system. Do your basic editing at full size (make sure to work off a copy of the original), then reduce to final physical size with an eye on file size...

**freygr** · 01-31-2006, 10:12 PM

Originally Posted by srobb

for a small photo contest? A friend that has seen my work gave me a copy of a local co-op magazine that is having a photo contest. I am going to be looking through my stuff to see what I have to use plus I will be taking new pics to use.

My question is this; in the rules they state to use as high a resolution image as possible, but they have a file size limit of less than 1MB. What kind of resolution should be used and would it be worth it to have some high-res scans made of the images I plan on using?

Any help is appreciated.

There are may things that deturmine file size, two main things is the orginal pixel size, and the type of compression, and the compression settings with the type of image will have a huge affect on the file size. Attached are two very different photos. The Altra-light was a 3.3 meg jpg, the water wheel was a 4.5 MEG jpg. I resize them to post, the water wheel is at 140K and the Ultra light is at 28.5K. Both photos are the same pixel size.

I had to change the deflaut setting in the jpg to make the file size smaller with the water wheel:

started at: file size 478K with sub sampling set at 1:1 and quility set at 100%
file size 291K with sub sampling set at 4:2 and quility set at 100%
file size 140K with sub sampling set at 4:2 and quility set at 90%

I saved both at the same settings.

GRF

**srobb** · 02-01-2006, 06:42 AM

Thought I would try this and see if there is a difference. The first is an original image with nothing done but resizing for the web. The second is the same image after having been worked on (contrast, levels, curves) scaled to 300 dpi then sized for the web.