Digital camera blues

Judy -

Perhaps it's just the way I work that my files are so large. If you scan a
3 x 5 photo that you get from any roll of film that's processed by Kodak,
etc... at 300 dpi, you only get a 5.8 MB file. The photo is 1722 pixels
wide (5.914 inches) x 1176 pixels high (3.972 inches). But this isn't
enough visual/digital material for the computer to work with if you are
going to make any large changes such as get rid of telephone wires and
clutter, etc... It's enough if you just want to duplicate what you already
have. So I scan at 1200 dpi which comes to 7097 pixels wide (again 5.914
inches) x 2766 pixels high (3.972 inches). This file is already a whopping
96.8 MB. And you haven't even started adding corrections.

I then usually crop this photo and then enlarge what is left. There are
many ways to do this as well but I usually choose not lose the 1200 pixels
per inch so the file increases again. This way when I print it, the photo
seems clearer to me as long as I choose to increase the photo in smaller
increments instead of one large jump in size. And so the MB amount of the
file goes up again. Some people would choose to disagree about this method
but I don't like the results of the other way when you print.

And finally I make corrections on "layers" which is like doing something on
a piece of paper right on top of the photo itself (this can be as
transparent or opaque as you want) but I'm not sure how much this adds to
the file size. If you then throw your photograph in another software
program for other effects which is often the case for me, the file goes up
again. So thus... huge file sizes.

I've really decided that the best thing for me is to work digitally on an
image, make a digital negative and then either do a gum print or just a
regular silver enlargement and hand color, tone, etc... I know I needed to
agonize over what would work for me but I'm glad my decision has been made
because now I have a lot more time to think about the work and not the
process. (And thank you Sandy King for mentioning the Epson R800 printer
because you just saved me a lot of money! I was going to get a much more
expensive one.)

Charlotte
Received on Sun Nov 9 07:43:14 2003