Digital BW, The Print

Well this is the B&W  list, and your stated desire was the highest
quality, so one assumes you're shooting B&W film. As Bruce suggests,
for that level of quality larger file sizes are just an accepted fact
of life. 
However you may find this workaround helpful, I've posted it here before-

Convert to 8 bit in PS and do a "save as", leaving the 16 bit intact.
Do all your adjustment layering and proofing from the lower bit
version. When happy, drag all those layers and masks as a group over
to your 16 bit, flatten and save as a final printer file.

Perhaps you will find that helpful, I do it all the time here.
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "steveabrink"
<steveabrink@...> wrote:
>
> Because I shoot color film typically and use it for for both color 
> and B&W, when I convert some to B&W in RGB mode, then save as  
> grayscale -- duh! Thanks! 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Tyler Boley" 
> <tyler@> wrote:
> >
> > sounds like you may be in RGB, try grayscale for files 1/3 that 
> size.
> > If you are concerned about what channel is used, there is a setting 
> in
> > Silverfast allowing your preference- 
> > Tyler
> > 
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@...m, "steveabrink"
> > <steveabrink@> wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm shooting a Mamiya 7ii w/ 6x7cm film and scan w/ a Microtek 
> 120 MF 
> > > scanner w/ Silverfast. The problem is when I scan at 4000 ppi 
> optical 
> > > at 16 bit my resulting files are 500+ MB, and that is w/o 
> adjustment 
> > > layers in the post processing stage which can be 1 gb+!  The 
> quality 
> > > BTW is usually better than my 5D Canon... I've tested 
> downsampling to 
> > > 3200 and even 2400 ppi and I really can't see a difference which 
> brings 
> > > it down nearly half the file size.  I'm not even sure I can see a 
> > > differnce when downsampling from 16 bit to 8 bit if I don't do 
> much 
> > > post processing. I'm just wondering what other folks do to keep 
> there 
> > > files sizes reasonable and still attain the highest quality...? 
> > > 
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > > SteveB
> > >
> >
>