Scanner advice please 8vs 16bit

[trellian]

Hi all. 40 years photographing with lge format & 35mm, just getting into digital, and photoshop. Very computer literate.

I am scanning in my "prized" 10 x 8 mono prints - mainly candid/people & musicians. Using an Epson 4180 scanner. Photoshop CS2.

Image size is no real worry to me. I've tried 8 bit greyscale scanning, doing tiffs that are around 60 MB It seems that publishers want pics. of around 50MB. The question is should i scan as 16 bit greyscale for "best quality" Image size is not much of an issue to me, I'd like to have as high quality an original as possible - I can always convert to 8 bit if I want jpegs.

So before I start scanning the lot in, could I have some advice please. These prints are already burned/dodged etc to my satisfaction, although I could also scan in the 35mm negs. I suppose.

Thanks.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Definitely use 16-bit. You'll get far fewer artifacts and smoother tonal gradations, especially if you do any processing to reduce scanner noise and clean up dust spots. Read the 16-bit consensus thread.