A question for everyone??

ok i have a tech question....
If I want to scan a photo say a 2x1.50 inches and i want to scan it at 2400dpi does anyone knows how big that scan would be. Or even better how much RAM would i need.

4800 x 3600 pixels - (Dont quote me)!

as to RAM...how much do you have? If you dont want to wait an hour than a lot. If you dont have much then be prepared to wait freakin long time lol!

I bought this all in one machine for my office.
Its a lexmark x5150. it supposed to acan at 2400.

when i tried to scan at anything bigger than 1200 i get a error message that said i have not enuff disk space. I have 50gig free!!! i called lexmark up and they said it was actualy ram i needed i hace 300+ now i have 500 and still no scan :*(
thats why i was wondering if anyone had any idea how much i REALLY need.

thanxs in advance.

ok...that makes more sense (sorry lol). That question i cant answer. But how are you scanning...to a program or to a file??. Cause if your scanning to file it shouldnt give you much of a problem. On my old computer (250mb's of ram sdram..not much lol) i could scan 1200dpi (to a file)with no issue other than timing. If i scanned to photoshop then my computer would choke on the memory and usually crash.

If you need a photo that big, then you obviously need it for print. My advice to you, have it scanned on a drum scanner, preferabley by a printer you will be using. It will save you a whole heck of alot of hassle.

keep in mind too that no matter how big you want to make it and how high res you scan it that tiny little photo only has so much image data. in other words, after a certain size you're going to lose sharpness no matter how high a resolution you scan it at.

chris

Keep in mind that a 300 dpi image of a decent size can get like 150 megs +, so if you are thinking of shoving a 2400 dpi image into 500 megs of ram you be crazy. Ram is so cheap, if you really want to do this go out and buy a gig of ram for your box.....

Originally posted by Fig
keep in mind too that no matter how big you want to make it and how high res you scan it that tiny little photo only has so much image data. in other words, after a certain size you're going to lose sharpness no matter how high a resolution you scan it at.

chris

Very true. To reitterate this, a lot of people take up uneccesary storage space when they scan. Can you tell us the desired size and print resolution you are seeking? That way one of us can give you an optimized setting to scan this picture at. You may be wasting your time by simply trying to scan it as big as you can. And at that size, if the scanner isnt super clean and does not have at least 48 bit depth, then your gonna get a real crappy output.

to tell you the truth i was just anoyed at the fact that i couldent scann at this dpi. I guess ill stay scanning at 1200. I really wanted to know how big was the biggest i could scann and how big the file would have been at maximum Dpi. But i guess i'll never know.

Our scanner at work does 2400 dpi and 48 bit color. there really isn't any point to it that i've seen. When you scan that high, you're just picking up little tiny specks of dust and you can see the color seperations in the printing and stuff. I rarely go above 300dpi. 600 if i'm scanning a logo off of a business card or something.