[Mike McCarty]

Karen,

I have achieved my best results from slides.

I should say that all my experience has been with film cameras. I do nothing digitally.

I may be luckier than most, I have a photo processor in Tulsa (KC Color) that will take my physical painting, photograph it to pro slide film using a studio lighting setup (which I continue to resist), and then produce a print from that slide.

I am charged $7.50 for the first slide(mounted and silver taped) and $3.50 for each additional mounted slide. These prices include the cost of the photographing of the painting! At the same time I have them produce my prints from this slide (additional cost per print per usual). Typically I will have printed an 8x10 (which I will use for my scan and then it goes to my display portfolio) and two 5x7 (one to send to my mother and one to send to the Vatican commission committee).

These prints are far superior to any that I have ever produced on my own. I think It is a combination of the studio lighting, and the quality of their digital printer. Also the larger the painting the more difficult it is to keep squared up. These folks seem to do this very well.

I'm no technical wizard but I don't think your guru is right. If you are talking about the difference between a print from a negative and a print from a slide. A print from a slide (first generation, positive image) would be the second generation image. When you view a print from a film negative the print would actually be the third generation image. Maybe someone else can clear this up.

For me this procedure gets me the best image I can create for viewing on the monitor. You scan this big 8x10 print image with at least a 200 dpi. You then do any cropping from this large file image (for example a face detail). You then reduce these relatively large files down to a more manageable size. For me this has been the best by far. I now keep three slide images for each painting. One for myself as a backup to create prints from and two to send for any competitions.