#FLATBED SCANNERS
I think you will have some problems with "most" consumer and prosumer scanners.
There are 2 losses of resolution. The first is in the photo you are scanning.
Depending on how the photo was shot ie- what was meant to be most in focus, f
stops for depth of field, lenses and film used. Then you try to scan it,
whatever the resolution say 300dpi or 600 dpi at 100% you are now going to
bring out those inherent "flaws" in the photo itself, plus the noise "analog"
to digital transfer. Then of course there is color calabration of the monitor
AND the scanner which will add to the total "degradation" of the image. I have
been using a microtek 3 pass scanner for some years for medically imagery and
medical transparencies and have gotten "very acceptable" results with tweaking
after the image is digitized. There is an excellent article on this in Adobe
Magazine which is an extension of the tutorials for photoshop. The title of
the article is How-To Looking Sharp—Using Photoshop's Unsharp mask filter
to produce crisp sharp images. Adobe Magazine March/April 1995 pg51. I would
say take an image that was scanned in from various scanners and play around
with this mask and I think you will see some excellent results. If you want I
can upload an image of a CT scan of the lumbar spine.
Sam
Medical Media