Digital BW, The Print

Re the 4x5 scans, that's a big file!  Trying that in RGB would probably
result in a meltdown.  I scan 4x5 negs in 16-bit grayscale at 1200 ppi.
That is a 4800 pixel image, which gives a 16" print before cropping at
300ppi output size.  I just scan 8x10 negs at the final output size with
cropping.  Regarding the smaller files, don't know what's wrong.  I have a
plain old Staples office supply HP Pavillion, about three years old, with a
1.7 P4 and 1.5g RAM.  RGB 35mm tif scans run about 100mb+, and it seems
pretty quick, even with layers which get up to about 300mb or so.  I do have
a separate HD for the PS scratch disk, and set the MS virtual memory for
each drive per their instructions.  I am using PS CS, which doesn't seem any
faster than previous versions; the reverse, maybe.  My files going to print
are seldom above 125mb.  With really big files (like your 4x5 scans and I
don't know what a 90mb jpg unpacks to), you are no doubt looking at a major
upgrade, something that will use the RAM limit of PS, and maybe a RAID or
similar for scratch disks.  What size prints are you making?  If they're
like around 16x20 or smaller, you may cure your issues by just going to
smaller file sizes that will give you the desired print size at 300 ppi
final output.  Hope this helps a little.

Regards,

  --Ken Carney
    www.kencarney.com  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Wensing [mailto:wensing@...] 
> Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 4:25 PM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Computing power
> 
> 
> 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?