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Date:         Tue, 26 Jan 1993 16:19:29 CDT
Reply-To:     Jeff Bone <JBONE@DOPIG.UAB.EDU>
From:         Jeff Bone <JBONE@DOPIG.UAB.EDU>
Subject:      TAN: Ellen's Scanning Questions

Ellen writes...

> Will I be satisfied? The scans would be primarily photos, often
> from color originals, or people for newsletters, to be printed
> on 60# offset or web offset. I look forward to the obvious
> benefits -- being able to manipulate the scans, size them all
> independently (right now I gang them to save $$), etc. But will
> a scan from say a HP scanjet at 600 (or should it be lower?) and
> output at 600 dpi be a significant reduction in quality? Of
> course, text would be a huge improvement over 300, I realize,
> and a big cost savings over paying lino costs.
> But will I still end up wanting to get halftones done traditionally?

The Scanning FAQ should answer your question about what resolution to scan at
and if a 600dpi HP Scanjet will do justice to a photograph (hint - the answer
is yes in most cases).  Your potential 600dpi printer will do a much better
job at printing halftones than your 300dpi printer because of its ability to
create more halftone (grey) steps, at 600 dpi and 75 lpi you can get a few
more than 100 grey steps.  75lpi is about the maximum I would push 600dpi.
Unfortunately 75lpi will appear fairly course (more like a newspaper image).
This wouldn't be a problem for internal publications going to a photocopier,
but you probably won't be happy with this printed to your offset press
quality pieces.  600dpi will save you imagesetting cost on many of your text
pages, but I think sending your photos to be imageset at at least 1200dpi
100lpi will make a better final page.  FYI, if you want the full 256 grey
steps from your 600dpi printer, you'll have to use an LPI of no more than 50,
which is as course as your old 300dpi laser.

> Also, Jeff -- you mentioned the "new QMS 960" in your FAQ. Is
> that a typo, and you mean the 860, or if not, what are the
> specs on the 960?

Yep, I didn't proof-read.  There are a number of faux pauxs, in fact much of
my benchmark lists included some early pre-release units whose specs and
features have changed a little now too.

By the way, I'm glad you liked the Scanning FAQ, I debated about posting the
whole thing to the LIST or just uploading it to the FTP area.  Since there
are a number of you that don't have FTP ability I thought this was the thing
to do.  I am planning to turn the FAQ into a much more polished resource and
loading it to the FTP site later as a PageMaker document if there is enough
interest.  That way I can simply publish updates to the Q&A section and
various addendums to the LIST and not waste the bandwidth with a 10 part
update.

----------------------------------------------------------------
** Jeff Bone                                <jbone@dopig.uab.edu>
** Electronic Imaging Coordinator            AppleLink: jbone
** School of Medicine                        205.934.4396 voice
** University of Alabama at Birmingham       205.934.3749 fax
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