I appreciatively request wisdom regarding a few questions on scanning (and PS cleanup of some of them). Especially on just how high a resolution scan I really need to do.
I have to scan about 25-40 images from several historical books. All are printed b&w, none are color. The scans will include the (historical) captions in elegant script writing. Some of the images are reproductions of woodcuts. The others are halftone reproductions of old paintings. (All are long out of copyright).
The woodcut scans don't require much in PS. Cropping, cleaning up in levels, and maybe a little sharpening. Same with the halftones, except that I'm not sure whether it's better to try to get good "levels" by adjusting the scan, or doing it later in PS.
The images will be used in a book, first in downloadable electronic form, probably PDF and Kindle. Then later the same book will be put out as a physical book.
I've done some test scans. My scanner is an Epson Stylus Photo RX620 flatbed. For "destination image type" I have a choice of 16-bit Grayscale, 8-bit Grayscale, and "B&W." So far I've used the B&W setting for the woodcuts, and it worked fine. As for the stuff that's half-toned, I don't know whether 8-bit is good enough, or whether I should do 16-bit Grayscale.
I also have questions about format of the resulting scan. I have a choice of Bitmap, JPG, multi-Tiff (whatever that is), PDF, or Tiff. I assume that a purist would want the scan in Tiff (or multi-Tiff?) because it's lossless and I think you can make a JPG or PDF as needed later. I dunno anything about Bitmap.
I expect that a professional will later take the text which we're writing, and put it together with the images, doing cleanup and formatting as needed.
I also have questions, significant question, about resolution. How much resolution do I REALLY need for the intended use of a downloadable book and eventually a physical book? My scanner gives me settings all the way up to 12,800 dpi! But even at 2,400 dpi, the scans which are typically 4" x 4" are enormous files, and my poor computer really chokes on them. For my purpose, what's the real minimum scan I need to use? Can I get away with 600 dpi?
So, the questions:
1. For the woodcuts, which output file type (Bitmap...Tiff? What?) to choose? And what dpi resolution?
2. For the already-half toned images, which output file type (Bitmap...Tiff? What?) to choose? And what dpi resolution?
3. Should I try to get a scan result that looks perfect, or figure on cleaning up levels and such in PS later?
And any other comments, advice, admonitions, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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