[GreatKetch]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Not that it can't be done (at least not by me) but that with even the best technique, the equipment you have is marginal for the job. Capable, yes, but still marginal. The D50 is a 3.3megapixel pixel, your best print placed side by side with a printed chart would be the obvious copy, not as clear and sharp. In your case you're down to about 110dpi for a 20" wide chart, which I'd call soft and fuzzy if you print 'em that size. But I've also nagivated with small fuzzy photocopies that must be worse than what you're making--and hey, at the time, they were all I needed and wanted to pay for. I can appreciate that!<G>

The D50 is a 6.1 megapixel camera and a 16x20 copy area is done at 150DPI, granted not the same as a offset press, but pretty good, and you're right, a lot better than those fuzzy old photocopies that all cruisers have used at one point or another.

You're doubly-disadvantaged against that because the D50 lens is not a "flat field" copy lens, like all consumer optics it is designed for greater depth of field and sharpness in a 3D zone, not a flat field. (Nikon made/makes some great flat-field lenses for their SLRs. Again, you'd have to put the work from them side by side to see the difference, but they pop.)

Obviously you are confused... the D50 IS an SLR... and the Sigma lens I am using is certainly not "consumer optic" grade glass. Granted, it is not a purpose built copy lens, but it has excellent focus field flatness and corner sharpness, when used at middle of the zoom and aperture ranges. Certainly it would have difficulty with generating a good copy of a PHOTO, but we are dealing with very simple, unsubtle images here, that are very easy to post process to excellent sharpness. This is not a technique for someone un-skilled in photography or digital photo manipulation, but it works, and works well when done with care.

And the copy charts also suffered keystoning. I wouldn't be surprised if Photoslop (software we love to hate<G>) could correct that by now, again given a careful user. Still, it leaves you open to distortion and a longer process. But as Galileo supposedly said "Nevertheless it turns!" if it works for you, that's all that counts.

Photoshop has had very functional perspective cropping for many versions. The CS2 version of this tool is even better.

What I described is not a theoretical process, it is what I DO successfully. I really do not understand why people are so ready to tell me what I know DOES work can not be done, but have no useful suggestions for my original question... Ah, the Internet!