Digital BW, The Print

Daniel writes:

> They don't seem to resolve more detail, but the grain
> looks better and more detailed than a 4000dpi image
> upsampled to 5400dpi. In other words the 5400dpi seems
> useful purely as an upsampling method.

Downsample the 5400 dpi to 4000 dpi and compare with original 4000 dpi
scans.  How do they compare then?

> Part of the reason for the slowness is also that
> the Minolta software enables the grain dissolver when you use ICE,
> without the option to switch it off.

Beware ... on the Nikon 8000, the grain eliminator (GEM, or whatever it is)
degrades image quality, whereas ICE does not.  If you can't turn on ICE
without getting the grain stuff, too, you may be sacrificing image quality.

> I've never had any aborted scans or performance problems
> when using Photoshop, but I'm on a PC (1gig ram) with
> windows XP, so it could be a hardware/os specific issue.

With 1.5 GB, I've seen both Photoshop and NikonScan stall or stop when both
are open simultaneously.  Neither program seems to manage memory very well.
Photoshop has known problems with memory management.