DIGITAL PHOTO IMAGERY

Science in the Service of Art

Home Order Book Images Scanning Workshop Printing Archiving Contact

SCANNING 35mm FILM IMAGES = 19.44 Megapixel Images

For best results with 35mm Film
Scan at
4000ppi
Scan Bit Depth
14bit
4x Sampling
Save As
an Uncompressed TIFF file

Black & White or Color

Positive or Negative

High Quality RGB or Grayscale scans can be created on
affordable desktop transparency scanners such as the
Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED

Taking the Mystery Out of D.P.I. (dots per inch)

Scanner Resolution ppi
(pixels per inch)
Image Size pls
(pixels on the long side)
Image Size pss
(pixels on the short side)
To determine the desired
Final Image Size
divide the number of
scanned pixels
on each side of the image by the
Printer Input Resolution
In this example:
5400pls / 360ppi = 15 inches
3600pss / 360 ppi = 10 inches
5400 x 3600 / 1,000,000 =
19.44 Megapixels
4000 ppi 5400 pls 3600 pss
  Image Size in Inches Image Size in Inches
  1.35 inches long side 0.9 inches short side
Printer Input Resolution
ppi (pixels per inch)
Image Size pls
(pixels on the long side)
Image Size pss
(pixels on the short side)
360 ppi 5400 pls 3600 pss
Printer Output Resolution Image Size in Inches Image Size in Inches
*1440 / 2880 dpi
(dots per inch)
15 inches long side 10 inches short side
These numbers show how a continuous tone photographic image can be printed on an inkjet printer.
*The Printer is designed to convert the ppi Printer Input Resolution to the dpi Printer Output Resolution.