what computer specs for making large prints form 4x5 and 6x6 slides

Ed,
Photoshop generally requires 3-4 times the ram as the picture size.
You can minimize the ram usage by setting the Photoshop Cache
preference value to 1. If you have a newer version of Photoshop, you
also need to frequently purge the undo and/or clipboard. I often work
with 275MB images on a 1GB Windows ME machine, but can't run the latest
Microsoft Internet Explorer as it corrupts the Windows ME memory.

Some scanner software is buggy and doesn't work well with large images.
The Microtek software that came with my 120tf can't scan a 6x7 at
4000dpi on a 1GB Windows ME machine. Microtek's "customer support" said
it can't be done. The Lasersoft Silverfast software works just fine.

Good Luck!

Peace,
-chasfs
http://chasfs.com

In article .com,
"Bill Hilton" wrote:

Gregory Blank writes ...

Also if the clock speed of the computer is too slow for the printer
the printer won't do it (Print the file).

Where did you hear this? The old parallel port (Centronics) interface
is so slow even the original 4 MHz IBM PC's were faster (I used to
design interfaces for it). Most printers today have USB 2 or 1394
interfaces in addition to the parallel port, but any computer modern
enough to support USB or 1394 will be able to send across data much
faster than any printer can handle it.

Bill

I didn't have to hear it. I found out by direct experience using a 1280
and a Performa 6400 Mac. The computer supports a USB PCI card but the
printer would not print files, I tried everything under the sun and
Epson technical had not a clue. The problems ceased when I bought
my G4.

Part of it could also be the slow bus speed of the Performa. In variably
the printer would hang sometimes midway though a page.

--
LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

Recently, Gregory Blank posted:

In article .com,
"Bill Hilton" wrote:

Gregory Blank writes ...

Also if the clock speed of the computer is too slow for the printer
the printer won't do it (Print the file).

Where did you hear this? The old parallel port (Centronics)
interface is so slow even the original 4 MHz IBM PC's were faster (I
used to design interfaces for it). Most printers today have USB 2
or 1394 interfaces in addition to the parallel port, but any
computer modern enough to support USB or 1394 will be able to send
across data much faster than any printer can handle it.

Bill

I didn't have to hear it. I found out by direct experience using a
1280 and a Performa 6400 Mac. The computer supports a USB PCI card
but the printer would not print files, I tried everything under the
sun and Epson technical had not a clue. The problems ceased when I
bought
my G4.

Part of it could also be the slow bus speed of the Performa. In
variably the printer would hang sometimes midway though a page.

My experiences are the same as Bill's... never saw a printer interface
that was faster than the computer's CPU. PCI bus speed is a specified
standard, btw. I suspect that your problems were due to some other issue,
perhaps driver incompatibilities or the particular USB PCI card.

Neil

Gregory Blank wrote

if the clock speed of the computer is too slow for the printer
the printer won't do it (Print the file). ... I didn't have to hear it.
I found out by direct experience using a 1280 and a Performa
6400 Mac. The computer supports a USB PCI card but the
printer would not print files

This is almost always a driver problem, either at the printer side or
the USB drivers ... there's probably some incompatibiltiy between
versions ... to put it in perspective, the slowest PCI spec is 132
MB/sec (4 bytes at 33 MHz) in burst mode and USB 2 can handle 60 MB/sec
so you could transfer a 250 MB printer file (which is pretty big) in 2
seconds on the PCI bus (if it were in burst mode, which it won't be)
and just over 4 seconds over the USB 2 serial bus, while it takes
several minutes for the printer to actually print a file this big.

The computer (Performa 6400 Mac) supports a USB PCI card but
the printer would not print files

I checked the 1280 manual and for Mac system requirements it says you
"should have an iMac series or Power Mac G3 or G4 with built-in USB
port" ... I don't know if the Performa meets this criteria but if your
USB is on a PCI expansion bus interface then it wouldn't fit the
"built-in USB port" requirement. So it's probably something like that
causing the printing problems. But it wouldn't be a problem with clock
speed.

I used to edit 1.5Gb images in photoshop on my old Athlon 700MHz with
384Mb RAM. Photoshop seems to manage memory pretty well. Performance
wasn't great but it was useable.

I now have a Pentium 4 3Ghz dual core with 2.5Gb RAM. No problems with
big files.
--
Mark

Ed Margiewicz wrote:
recently purchased an epson 4900 scanner for some of my 4x5 and 6x6
slides. My old dell computer (about 5 years old) freezes up with file sizes
over 600k. If I would like to make large prints (30 or 40 or bigger) from
scanned slides what would I need or look for in a new computer to handle
such large file sizes. I am guessing file sizes up to 500mb. Any help or
suggestions are appreciated.

Ed M
www.traquilimages.com