Scan an enlarged print” works for enlargements… can it be used to improve all my scans?
Possibly! The easiest way is when getting your film developed… always opt for the slightly more expensive larger print size. The cost of this is almost zero on a per image basis, and the larger the original, the better. An other trick is to start with an original that is 200% of the final image size. Scan it at 100%, but at half the resolution you need. In Photoshop, use the ‘Image Size’ command (with ‘resample’ turned off) to reduce the image to the correct size (which also makes the resolution correct). Reducing the image in Photoshop means any artifacts or ‘fuzziness’ introduced by the scanner optics is reduced in size. The result is a sharper image. This is especially true with a scanner that uses ‘interpolated resolution’. See the next question for more details. This trick of scanning and reducing will make it possible to have really sharp images, even from an inexpensive scanner.
