Digital BW, The Print

Hi,
my current images are stitched to try and get into the 30-50 megapixel area.

The thing is: I like to do as much as I can in ACR, because I've found that this really helps the end result. 

But PhotoMerge outputs an RGB file and I've not found a way around that. Have I missed something?

It seems silly to convert to Gray Gamma 2.2 in ACR, only to have PhotoMerge change it to ProPhoto. An unnecessary double profile conversion to ProPhoto RGB and back to Gray Gamma 2.2.

But if this is unavoidable, perhaps outputting from ACR as sRGB or aRGB might mean there is less data pushed around in PhotoMerge's profile conversion, due to the smaller colour spaces?

I really don't know how much profile conversions degrade an image and how much different any degradation is when converting to or from a wide gamut space, as opposed to, say, aRGB or the even smaller sRGB.

Any thoughts?

thanks,
Richard

--
richard smallfield photography
http://smallfield.vze.com 

   "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, 
   how incapable must Man be of learning from experience."
   --George Bernard Shaw