Scanning backglasses at what dpi?

[illawarra_steelers]

Have the day off and the house is empty except for the dogs who have been out the back while the volume gets louder from the stereo 

Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith - hope the neighbours are enjoying it 

Anyways have a Williams Domino 1952 backglasses in the house that has seen better days. So I have it being scanned in sections at the moment and the question is what dpi should I be scanning these at?

The plan will be to take this into Paintshop, stitch it all together, do the touchups in PSP then have it printed out on glass. Will also have the opaque part printed out from a file prepared in PSP.

Started at 300, then moved to 600, the results are much better but I'm starting to worry what the combined size of the file will be in PSP and how it may struggle with a massive file

Any help greatly appreciated

[Ric]

can't help with the backglass however I will confirm that defenders of the faith is an awesome album and often overlooked in Priest's overall work

[illawarra_steelers]

can't help with the backglass however I will confirm that defenders of the faith is an awesome album and often overlooked in Priest's overall work

 

Just hope the neighbours agree 

[Retropin]

How much RAM do you have??

300dpi should be enough.. when it comes to print, it will look better than whats on your screen.
A standard 600 X 600 BG will take 9 scans to complete with overlap.. resultant file dependant on the level of repair required is around 120Meg

[jyebow]

can't help with the backglass however I will confirm that defenders of the faith is an awesome album and often overlooked in Priest's overall work

I'm with Ric, I can't help with the backglass sorry Tony, but I've been givin' Priests "Screaming for Vengence" a workout in the car this week & I think I'll head to the shed for beers , Pins & put on a few Priest DVD's
(sorry to turn this into a Judas Priest thread  )
THEY ROCK !! 

[ddstoys]

Well i hope you get this sorted tony when you do i may have a mission for you?

[Marty Machine]

What file format are you scanning/saving to? BMP or somthing 'uncompressed, i.e. NOT .jpg ???

For clarity i go with .BMP at the expense of LARGE files.

Also try reducing the colour-palette in your final pix, since the BGlass artwork aren't photo-quality (millions of colours) and something similar to cartoon quality, you could reduce your colour palette from 64million colours down to 256 colours with no image degradation.
This would reduce a LARGE file into a relatively small(er) file to worjk with, especially if you have RAM limitations.

Reducing the colour palette may also help reproduce the exact colours on your BackGlass.
If you scanned a uniform yellow area on the BG, you dont wan't to be working with 100's or 1000's of shades of 'that yellow' in your final scan.

food for thought 
MM.

[illawarra_steelers]

What file format are you scanning/saving to? BMP or somthing 'uncompressed, i.e. NOT .jpg ???

For clarity i go with .BMP at the expense of LARGE files.

Also try reducing the colour-palette in your final pix, since the BGlass artwork aren't photo-quality (millions of colours) and something similar to cartoon quality, you could reduce your colour palette from 64million colours down to 256 colours with no image degradation.
This would reduce a LARGE file into a relatively small(er) file to worjk with, especially if you have RAM limitations.

Reducing the colour palette may also help reproduce the exact colours on your BackGlass.
If you scanned a uniform yellow area on the BG, you dont wan't to be working with 100's or 1000's of shades of 'that yellow' in your final scan.

food for thought 
MM.

Thanks for that Marty,

Yes was saving files as .jpg but wasn't that happy with the results even at 600dpi so will try again with what you suggested later today

[Marty Machine]

Sadly, jpg compression adds a lot of artifacts and distortion in detailed areas, therefore more shading and colour-palette information too.

If you stick with uncompressed images like bmp, gif, tif or tga (some of these get real large), you'll find it easier to work with.
If you look at your avatar image, there's only about 10-11 unique colours used, all flat-even shades, so there's no reason to need anymore than say a 256 colour palette.

hope it helps.
MM.

[illawarra_steelers]

Thanks Marty!

Rescanned the front of the backglass just then and much happier with the results. Saved as .BMP files and they total 650 MB combined.

Time to start to stich it back together 

[ddstoys]

Great work Tony is your scanner poratble?????

[illawarra_steelers]

Great work Tony is your scanner poratble?????

Not unless it had a 80km extension lead 

[Marty Machine]

Rescanned the front of the backglass just then and much happier with the results. Saved as .BMP files and they total 650 MB combined.

Glad you see the improvement.
Now is probably a good time to save a test scan in different formats, and see how quality compares versus size.
You might find that simply saving your scans as .Gif will have the same colour quality and far less file size, which will allow your photo-editor to breath a little.
.BMP may still default to 16 or 24bit palette size (huge file) while .Gif will typically default to 256 (maximum) Colour-Palette at a greatly reduced file size.......something to play with and find a good working formula for yourself.

Anything except .Jpg is a good place to start hehehehe.

MM.

[illawarra_steelers]

Thanks again Marty,

Cut the files to CD and will take them to work on Tuesday and play with the files there.

My concern is currently the 6 x .BMP files combine to be 650 MB which will be a nightmare to work on once they are all stitched back together.

The touchup in PSP will prove a major challenge as there is a fair amount of paint missing

[ddstoys]

Best bit of advice i can offer for PSP is the clone tool is your friend