Digital BW, The Print

I scan B&W 2 1/4 sq film at 4000 dpi/16 bit for 150MB psd files and work with that.  Then 
convert to RGB/ 8 bit for printing.

PS works quite well, though I do more or less straight photography (levels, curves, 
dodging, etc) which does not use filters, etc.  The levels adj layers for example are more or 
less instant, and this is on files that end up well over 500MB sometimes while still in 
grayscale, even over 1 GB.

I sure wouldn't use jpegs though.  I don't want to lose the information in compression.  I 
go to enough trouble to shoot high res (only PX) and scan high res to throw it away.

I am using PS CS but my understanding is that it is a bit slower than the previous 
versions; not sure though.  Am using a dual 2.5 ghz Mac with 2.5 MB of memory.   You 
should definitely have much more memory than file size; if you have to use disk swaps you 
"will die" before some things complete.  Note though that PS will only use a max of 2GB of 
memory, at least on a Mac, but I think it is a PS limit, not a Mac one.  Could be wrong of 
course.  Someplace I saw a note (from Adobe I think) that said 3GB was more than enough 
(leaving some for the OS, etc)

My slowest operation is actually file saving, and I do let it make thumbnails, etc, though 
NOT "max compatibility" which I feel is a waste.

Scott

PS note that "more or less instant" means that I don't notice a delay, not that I timed it  :)



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Matthew Wensing 
<wensing@s...> wrote:
> I scan in 4x5 negatives at 4800 dpi, 16-bit grayscale,
> and am having a tough (read: slow) time of it with
> Photoshop 6.0 with the resulting files.  Actually, I
> can't even work with the 50-90 mg .jpeg's, but instead
> downsize to roughly 12 megapixels and then
> dodge/burn/tweak those.  Does anyone here work with
> digital files around 50-90 megs in Photoshop that is
> happy with the quickness of their setup in doing so? 
> Right now, with the machine I have, manipulating such
> files is impossible.
> 
> My machine is an Athlon XP 1.46 Ghz with 1 gig of DDR
> RAM.  Two possible bottlenecks from what I know are
> memory bus speed (333 Mhz with my current motherboard)
> and also the version of PS I'm using.  CS might be
> faster from the get-go?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Matt
> 
> =====
> E-mail: wensing@s...
> Blog: <http://seaofglass.blogspot.com>
> Photography: <http://www.wensing-photo.com>