Best way to enlarge slides (Nikon, photoshop, camera, prices)

[FW transplant]

I have several color slides taken years ago on vacation and now want to enlarge them for framed wall art. The end result would be 2x4 feet and 3x6 feet framed.

What you are experiences? Who would you choose - Walgreens (or a similar store) or a professional camera store? Does it matter?

I'm mostly concerned about the end quality - will it be grainy or blurry going from a slide with a large photo?

Thanks in advance.

[bouncethelight]

I answered your other thread on this... https://www.city-data.com/forum/hobbi...hy-advice.html

[WyoNewk]

The best bet is a drum scanner -- expensive and used by only a few large photo specialists. There are other dedicated film scanners that will do a good job, but I wouldn't put much faith in those found at Walgreens and other 1-hour labs. I used to do some film scanning for agencies and others who wanted something a little better than provided by the 1-hour labs, and I just used my Nikon desktop scanner.

If you have good slides they'll scan better than negatives, but the exposure is more critical on them.

[MRVphotog]

I agree that getting a drum scan from your slide is the way to go. They cost from $25 to $50 depending on how big a file you want. You will end up with a scan that you can work with if you want. There are several good labs online that you can simply upload and they mail you the print.

If you have a bunch of slides you want to print this might be cost prohibitive so just sending/taking your slide to a good lab will probably be cheaper. The scan they will produce will not be as big as a drum scan but might work good enough if the original slide is sharp.

[FW transplant]

Thanks for your ideas. Now I where to go and what to ask for.

[Nomadicus]

You will need more than a good scan. That size is asking a lot from even a good scan. The printer used and RIP software come into play too. For the size you are looking for a 4x5 sheet film camera would have been the way to go or at least a medium format 6x12 camera.

Another factor is did you shoot ISO 400 Provia or ISO 100 Astia? Grain of the film comes into play for final image quality.

[MRVphotog]

Originally Posted by FW transplant

Thanks for your ideas. Now I where to go and what to ask for.

The easiest thing to do is to go to a pro lab, hopefully there is one in your area, and just go in or call them and tell them what you want and they will explain what level of scan would work the best.

Secondly, you can go on google and find a good pro lab or thirdly grab a good photography mag and check out the pro lab ads and call them. Shutterbug, American Photo or Digital Photo would work. A good bookstore should have at least one of those mags.

Once you have the scan done you can probably have that lab do the print. They can do a great job with the print but I suspect it will be pricey. I would take the scan and give an online lab like Mpix or Dale a try, very reasonable prices. Also there are even speciality labs for poster size prints. You just simply upload the scan and they mail you the prints.

As mentioned by several, the print will be only as good as the scan and the scan will be only as good as the original slide.

Years ago we took our slides, made 4x5 internegetives and then printed from that. I think a quality high resolution scan will do a better job than that method.

If you don't have some sort of image editing software like Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro and no how to use it and upload an image from the CD/DVD drive in your puter then you should probably just find a good pro lab and have them do the job for you.