Sorry my first question was not specific enough. In deciding to have some of my 645 transparencies put on a cd by a lab, what should I be asking for? I have heard references made to pro cd's. If I have them scanned and my purpose is primarily web use but could potentially (after my own editing) want to take the cd to a lab and have a quality print done, what do I ask for? I hope this is more clear. Thank you Jeri

-- Jeri Childs (jerichilds@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000

Answers

Not mentioned here so far is that (AFAIK), standard PhotoCD is only available for 35mm film. Medium format forces you to the Pro format, for which service providers charge a LOT more. (Standard is typically less than $1 per scan, often a lot less. Pro typically goes for $10/ scan and up. Some providers will do a Pro scan with lower resolution (equivalent to standard) for less money, but in my limited experience, they always charge more for medium format work.

-- David Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), January 30, 2000.

There are two different choices...

Master Photo CD...offers 5 resolutions with the largest yielding an 18mg. file. It is for 35mm film only. Pro Photo CD...offers up to 6 resolutions with the largest producing a 72mg. file. This version supports 35mm and larger formats.

PhotoCD in general allows you to choose the proper resolution for your intended output...either on screen or print.

Sc

-- Scott J. Little (scottjl@earthlink.net), January 28, 2000.

Ordinary PhotoCD has five resolutions of each slide stored on disk: 128x192 256x384 512x768 1024x1536 2048x3072

Pro has six, the additional one being 4096x6144

For what you describe, you probably don't need Pro, ordinary is good enough. The highest resolution on ordinary is higher than today's 2-megapixel cameras which everyone claims are "good enough" for printing 8" x 10" prints. If you wanted to print out larger than 8" x 10" then you should use Pro.

Of course for web work ordinary is good enough.

Regarding printouts, you would submit all your original slides to the Kodak PhotoCD lab, they scan them and return the PhotoCD(s) to you. You can read the images into your editing program, such as Photoshop, etc. and edit them as you wish. You cannot write new versions to the PhotCD (even if you have a CD-R burner) because as far as I know the format is proprietary and Kodak has not released software to write PhotoCD files (which have the .pcd extension.) You can only read them.

So you have to save the edited images as TIF or good-quality JPEG, or whatever, and then either print them yourself on your own good printer, or send them to any of many online photo-print houses if you want true silver-based photos printed from them.

hope this helps, email me if more info needed.

-bruce

-- bruce komusin (bkomusin@bigfoot.com), January 29, 2000.

Not an answer just a thank you to Scott and Bruce! Jeri

-- Jeri Childs (jerichilds@hotmail.com), January 29, 2000.