Scanning B&W Prints -- Advice please

I have a huge collection of B&W prints from my old film and darkroom days and I would like to digitise them.

I have a flat bed scanner that I can borrow from work during my week off and would like to begin digitising them during that time.

My questions are:-

1. Best Format? (Tiff I guess)
2. Should I scan in B&W or colour? (Currently set to millions of colours)
3. Resolution? (The default is 300PPI but will go up to 4800PPi)

I am an absolute novice when it comes to scanning photographs and I want to preserve the prints as best I can. Most of the prints are 10x8 B&W and normally on Ilford RC papers.

Any advice will be gratefully received

Cheers

MZ

First stick to 300ppi(dpi) as that is all the eye can see. Also to scan at 4800ppi on that size (10x will take forever. Scan in GREYSCALE as B&W will give exactly that B&W. Grayscale gives what it says on the tin, all the shades of grey from white through to black. Tiff is lossless but makes big files whereas jpeg (biggest size) should be be more than enough. Jpeg only degrades VERY VERY SLOWLY in the computer after many times opening and re-saving when it compresses a little more each time.
CHEERS Vic.

Well, I scan in colour since there can be quite a difference in the tonality of various paper and developer combinations.

Hi Ken. I think I agree. Scan in colour then change to grayscale would most likely be better. definitely don't scan in B&W.

On the side Ken how did you get on with the Pentax power pack? Any results yet? GOOD or BAD. CHEERS Vic.

I've gotten as far as getting the tabbed cells

Ken

You need to extract as much detail as possible from the Black and white prints.

Basically I agree with Vic and Ken.

For my use, I scan in colour at 300dpi if I am retaining the original size, or 600dpi if I intend to enlarge from A4 to A3. Care is needed with contrast settings in the scanner software. Try to avoid blocked up blacks or burned out highlights. I actually leave my scans in colour mode and save to tiff.

If your scanner supports higher bit density, you can scan at 48bit and reduce this to 16 or 8 bit in Photoshop. This will again gain maximum detail from the scan. Obviously higher settings increase the scanning time.

I use TIFF and Vic uses JPEG. The technicalities of the pros and cons of file formats can be researched on the web. There are good arguments for either.

Thanks guys,

I will be borrowing a decent scanner for about a week during my summer holiday from work so I will get as much done during that time.

Thanks for the advice,

from a digital learner!

Cheers MZ

Lots of us have, or have had, an ambition to scan all our slides and negatives.

Has anybody managed to do more than 10% before giving up?

Sorry to sound negative, but it's a huge and boring task (assuming you have a decent amount of stuff to copy).

If I felt like trying it again, I would get a light table and copy stand, and use a camera. Scanners are far too slow.

G

Nowhere near as much as 10%

However by going through contact sheets and slide boxes from long ago I found a few images I had wrongly discounted at the time.