The Epson V600 retails for $229.99, although there were several deals around the web for under $200 at the time of writing this article. Max film scan resolution: 6400 x 9600 dpi.Others, meanwhile, are actually pretty good and affordable. There are a lot of options when it comes to digitizing film yourself (including simply using a digital camera), but some of these methods require complex setups, some have huge equipment costs, and some just aren't very good. But, just like developing at a lab, having a lab scan your film costs money, which is why many people like the idea of scanning negatives themselves. Many photo labs offer scanning as part of their services, often using large scanners able to process a full roll of 35mm film in a few minutes. Or if you're a masochist with terabytes to spare you can try scanning every frame this way.Film continues to be a popular medium among photographers today, and whether you're an active or former analog user, the easiest way to share your treasured moments is by digitizing your film through scanning. I've read that flatbed scanners like the v600 don't really have any effective resolution past 2400 DPI (and maybe they technically don't the improvements probably come from resizing the insanely large image, right?).Īnyway, if you have a flatbed you might consider scanning your most important frames at the highest DPI available then sharpening and resizing in Photoshop. The sharpened and resized 9600 DPI frame has less noise while being approximately as sharp as the 2400 DPI frame. (Note on unsharp mask: I selected the px radius fairly arbitrarily but my goal was to match the sharpness of the resized 9600 DPI frame to the original 2400 DPI frame while ignoring scanner noise.) Both in Epson Scan with no adjustments besides DPI.Īpplied 0.9 px radius 500% unsharp mask to the 2400 DPI frame and did not resizeĪpplied 4.0 px radius 500% unsharp mask to the 9600 DPI frame then resized to 3359 pixels wide to match the size of the other scan. Scanned the same 35mm frame of Portra 400 at 2400 DPI (3359 pixels wide) and then again at 9600 DPI (about 14,000 pixels wide).

I'll describe a little of my process but if you want to jump straight to the results you can go to my flickr album.

Epson perfection v200 photo max dpi