Digital BW, The Print

Mark,

When you convert RGB to grayscale, you do indeed reduce the file 
size. But your resolution and the print size will be the same as 
before.  All that has happened is instead of having 3 channels x 25MB 
(=75 MB)you have a single 25 MB channel.  If the original was a b&W 
negative, you have lost nothing at all.

Good luck.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., MARK MAIO <markmaio@m...> 
wrote:
> Being new to this list and digital printing, this might be a basic
> question, so I apologize in advance if it is.
> 
> I am using a quad tone B&W printing system and having my B&W 
negatives
> drum scanned. For the purpose of this question, I ask for the scan 
to be
> for output at (X) dpi @ (X) size, which, for examples sake, gives 
me a
> 75 meg RGB file. When I open the file in PhotoShop and convert it to
> gray scale, I end up with a 25 meg file, which now limits me to a
> smaller size/resolution print.
> 
> So, I paid for a 75 meg scan but I can only use 25 megs of it. I 
could
> pay for a 225 meg scan to get the 75 megs I need to use or I could 
find
> a lab that would do custom gray scale drum scans, but I had another 
idea
> I wanted to run by the group. Would it be possible to open the B&W 
image
> as a RGB file and then convert/save each of the three color layers 
as a
> separate gray scale layer of 25 megs each and somehow merge them
> together to end up with a 75 meg gray scale file?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Mark Maio