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Originally Posted by obcbeatle
Thanks for the informative reply Lance. I think I will need to have something like a Epson 4990 since I will have multiple size negatives. I'll have to check what size negative holders were made for the Epson 4990's first though ... and save some more $ :-) As an aside ... I was planning to go to a photo lab for a few prints from a couple of the negatives I have. I assumed they would scan and then make a print. But I saw earlier in this thread that someone had the lab use a dark room for their prints. Not being real familiar with the printing processes these days I was wondering if I should ask the lab to use their darkroom to make the print? Or maybe they will anyway if they scan/digitize my negatives first? Also ... once you've scanned an image with your Epson 4990, do you then take the negative image (tiff?) to the lab for modern prints? If so ... I assume it's less expensive since they don't have to do the scanning? Sorry for my ignorance. Thanks again for the feedback.
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Glad to be giving you guys some (hopefully correct) insight. As far as the negative holders for the 4990, I know they made ones for 35 mm (multiple strips), slides, and medium format negatives. And the one I bought also came with an 8x10 template that was basically just a thin border (since the scanner bed is not much bigger than 8x10) and seemed very flimsy. There might have been one more size in there between medium format and 8x10 as well. I'll have to dig them out to confirm. Having the correct guides for the scanner allows some degree of automation in that it has presets so that, if you're using the slide scanner for instance, you just designate which of the pre-positioned slides you want to scan, and it knows what area to scan without you having to box it in. The down side is, if for some reason you WANT to capture all the way to the edge of the negative (not just the image area), that will fall outside the preset scan area. I guess that might not be a big deal, depending on what you were using the scans for, but I opted for the manual method rather than using the templates.
As for having prints made, I will have to defer to others' experiences in having labs do traditional prints. I would suggest going through an actual photo lab (i.e. not WalMart, Walgreens, etc) who will know what you're talking about. The prints that I have had made, I did the scan myself, cropped it to the size I wanted, cleaned up the image as necessary in photoshop, and sent the digital file for printing (in my case, to clarkcolor.com, though there are any number of outfits that will do similar work). If you save the image as a jpeg, just be sure to save it at the highest "quality" (assuming your image editing allows some choice in that matter) which should be comparable to a .tiff file. Purists are welcome to argue the accuracy of that statement, but again, with my lay eye, I can't tell the difference. Some programs that do not allow a choice on the jpeg "quality" definitely are not saving at the highest possible setting, so in that case, I suppose you should use .tiff (or a different imaging program).
If you're having the lab do the scanning, I have no idea which method of producing a print they would "prefer" or what the cost difference might be. I would suspect the traditional darkroom method would be more expensive than scanning and producing a digital print, simply because the traditional method is probably not the norm in most shops these days, but I don't have any hard experience to back that statement.
And let me just say, I don't mean to be monopolizing this thread. Certainly anyone else jump in and share their own experience and/or shoot down anything I've said. I've got thick skin, and would welcome any opportunity to learn from my mistakes and improve my methods. I hope it doesn't sound like I have any formal training in photography (because I don't). I have had most of these same questions myself at one time or another, and either found an answer on some photography website that I could never find again, or just used trial and error to figure out what worked for me as I went along.