Digital BW, The Print

Stanley writes:

> Geez! How many of us are printing 44"x33" prints
> (that is approximately = to a 500meg file?)

A 6x6 image scanned at 4000 dpi and 16-bit depth will yield about 480
megabytes.  A 6x9 image will reach 850 MB or so.  Presumably if you are
shooting medium format in the first place, it's because you intend to make
very large prints that will be examined at close range--otherwise you could
simply shoot 35mm or even digital.  This is all the more true for
large-format images.  Incidentally, an 8x10 transparency scanned at 5000 dpi
(about the highest one ever need go with slide films) yields a 12,000 MB
file.  Such a file could produce a backlit mural 60 feet on a side, large
enough to adorn the wall of a railroad station or airport terminal.

I've seen 15x7-foot backlit enlargements from digital camera files, and they
look horrible, as the lack of resolution is extremely easy to see unless you
are practically in another room.  No such problem with large film formats.

One other reason for using very high-resolution images is that they give you
a great deal of headroom for manipulation in Photoshop before they start to
degrade visibly.