Digital BW, The Print

Hello Stephen,

>Question: does it make a difference whether you work on a B&W file 
>in RGB or monochrome?  

In my tests I never found any print quality advantage to RGB over
grayscale.  I do find much advantage to the 2/3 reduction in file size
of grayscale in that various manipulations in PS are much quicker (not
to mention reduced storage requirements).

However, there are some techniques and/or 3rd party products that
require RGB files, such as color-to-bw conversion apps that emulate BW
films, split toning techniques, film grain emulators, and edge effects.   

I don't use any of those so I go to grayscale first thing after the
color-to-bw conversion or neg scanning.  For me the smaller file size
is a major consideration.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm