Bunko.T Loc: Western Australia.

I found that it wouldn't let you choose excessive res, but I set as high as possible. But high takes longer & find the average between good pics & not so good.

steinr98

For slides, the best resolution for scanning is 3200 dpi- that is if you ever want to make a decent size print or use that file for any reason. Any lower will give you problems if you go over a 4x6 print or decide to show the file other than on a TV. TVs and monitors only need 72 dpi to show and it looks great- but don't be fooled by this as the slides keep fading as time goes on so spend the time to do it correctly the first time!!!! Now for prints(Just in case you wish to do some) Any photo that are 3.5 x 5 or smaller you need 800 dpi. Any photo 4x6 or larger(up to 8.5x11) you only need to scan @ 600dpi. To go any higher in the resolution for photos is a waste of time. NOTE:The higher the dpi the longer the scan. On the Epson V700 which does 12 slides at at time, takes approx 20 minutes per batch to scan. It is a good idea to have your slides stacked in an order that represents the time and place of the photos, so you can input that information into the file name thru the software. This way, when you scan "Jimmy's Birthday" you can put "Jimmy's Birthday" into the file name, and so forth changing the file name for each batch of slides you do. If you set up the software correctly, each time you go to do the final scan(not the preview scan) the box will pop up asking for a file name which you can change with each batch-

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Wow! That will keep you busy for a while. Make sure they're clean, or processing will drive you crazy.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

The higher the resolution, the slower the scan. I was impatient and did all of mine at 300. They still look fine on the monitor and I don't do much printing.

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

I set my V600 at 3200 dpi. That seems to be a good compromise between the sharpness of results, and the time it takes to scan which is about 3 minutes for each batch of 4 slides. Any higher a resolution and the scan time skyrockets as it does when you use their "smart" scanning mode to remove dust, flaws, etc. Keeping the scan time manageable was necessary when I was scanning my hundreds of 35mm slides from the '70's and '80's. I were going to enlarge and print a single scanned slide, I might go to a higher resolution.

Morning Star Loc: West coast, North of the 49th N.

I usually know what size I want to have my my scans printed before I even scan the negatives or slides.
So, for a 6 x 4 print, I want the scan to be 1800 x 1200 pixels.
For 5 x 7, I want the scan to be 1500 x 2100 pixels.

Do the math, and calculate at what resolution to scan: to get 35mm at 1800 pixels: 35mm = 1.38 inches. Scan at 1300ppi.
To get 24 mm at 1200 pixels (the short side of a 35mm negative): 24 mm = 0.95 inches. Scan at 1300 ppi. (These ppi are rounded off to get whole numbers).

That's the sample; I'm sure with this you can calculate it yourself for other sizes.
No time to calculate every time you want to scan something? Jot down the numbers on a card and keep near the scanner, in three columns: Original size, desired print size, scanning resolution.

Of course, you can always print smaller from a high resolution, but enlarge too much and you get soft prints.

Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

Thank you all as I just received my V600 haven’t even had a chance to open the box

PlymouthWoodworker Loc: Plymouth, MA

I'm also working my way through thousands of slides. I have experimented with various resolutions, and have settled on 2400 dpi. Even with high enlargement on the screen and in print I see no difference between 2400 and 4800 dpi. But I do see some difference if I go lower than 2400. I'm using an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner (distant predecessor to the V600), and have gotten excellent results. Because of darkening over the years, many of my older (1960's - '70's) slides benefit from the backlight adjustment in the EpsonScan software. I also generally lower the contrast a bit before scanning, as older slides tend to increase in contrast, and also use the color restoration options occasionally. I scan to .tif files, edit in Photoshop elements, and then produce a final .jpg file. Hope this helps.

mckraft

Mark,
With 10000 slides I would recommend a Pacific Image PowerSlide 5000 CCD Slides Scanner, it can do 50 slides at a time. I have one and have scanned over 10000 slides a bit of a learning curve but excellent results. Would recommend reading all reviews and shopping around, the price varies. Also recommend getting several slide trays. Also VueScan software.

JeffR Loc: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

There's a distinction to be made between sources: a print and a slide or negative. If I'm scanning a print, my standard is to scan at 600dpi. I'll drop down to 300dpi if the print is soft or lacking a lot of detail, and I'll boost it to 1,000 or more if there's a lot of detail or it's one of my prized few.

If the source is a slide or negative, it requires a much higher setting, between 3,000 dpi – 4,000 dpi. I wouldn't go lower than 3,000 if you want a high quality scan.

My guiding principal is to do it right the first time. I don't intend to ever go back and re-do my whole scanning project again – life's too short.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Yes, the final resolution is easy to calculate. Here are some more things to keep in mind:

1. 300 dpi for viewing applies to prints viewed from about 10" (25 cm). It also applies when you view an 8x12 inch print from 10 inches so you should scan for that - 2400x3600 or about 8.64 MP - if you ever come up with an image that you want to print larger. That calls for a scan resolution of about 2540 dpi.

2. A larger print will be viewed from a proportionally greater distance so the 2540 dpi scan as well as the 8.64 MP will continue to apply.

3. If you don't plan to print but just want to display on a monitor, the scanning requirements are a little different. A 2k monitor (1080x1920, 2.07 MP) needs a scan of only 856 dpi. A 4k monitor (2160x3840, 8.29 MP) needs about 1711 dpi and s 5k monitor (2880x5120, 14.75 MP) needs 2282 dpi.

All of this assumes that you are not going to crop the original 24x36mm negative. Since something as simple as leveling results in a slight crop of the image, scanning at 3200 dpi would be prudent.

DHooch

I don't remember the DPI setting, but, I got good images of color 35mm slides that were captured at around 10 MB each. My old 4-slide scanner failed after 640 slides and took me 16 hours to scan all of those. I'm looking into a higher capacity flat-bed scanner to finish converting my thousands of slides.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Use the highest resolution your scanner can do. If you choose to print the image larger you'll have the ability.

srfmhg Loc: Marin County, CA

Thank you JR.

don26812 Loc: South Bay of Los Angeles, CA

I extracted the following from the link below.
"So if a scanner touts an optical resolution of 4800x9600, it's the 4800 that matters.

An inexpensive flatbed may have an optical resolution as low as 1200-dpi (although the trend is upward). If you scan a 35mm film frame (which is 1.0x1.5 inches) at that resolution, your image size will be 1200x1800 pixels. Simple math.

Find out how many dots per inch your printer requires to make a high quality print. Do some tests to confirm the manufacturer's recommendation.

If you need 150 dpi to make a good print on your inkjet printer, the biggest print you can make with your 1200x1800 images is an 8x12 (on, say, 9x13 paper).

But if your printer needs 300 dpi (like a 4x6 dye sub printer), the largest print you can make from that same image is just 4x6. To get an 8x10 from that 35mm frame, you have to be able to scan 2400 dpi.

The 6400 dpi of the V600 easily exceeds that requirement."

Here is the link.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN/V600/V600.HTM

The article also said the following for the V600.

•6400x9600 dpi optical resolution

Finally it appears that there is some confusion when it is recommended to scan negatives/slides at 300 dpi.