# Black and White scanning 48bit RGB or 16bit Gray?

**URL:** <https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/black-and-white-scanning-48bit-rgb-or-16bit-gray/6731>\
**Category:** Flatbed and Film Scanners\
**Created:** [September 14, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/black-and-white-scanning-48bit-rgb-or-16bit-gray/6731 "2023-09-14T13:30:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![IanRM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bcef8e/32.png) [@IanRM](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/IanRM)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/black-and-white-scanning-48bit-rgb-or-16bit-gray/6731/1 "2023-09-14T13:30:20Z")

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I’m scanning Black and white negs with Vuescan and Nikon Coolscan V.  
Am I right in thinking I should still scan at 48bit RGB RAW dng, I’m sure I saw that in the documentation somewhere?  
However I have tried scanning to 16 bit Gray RAW dng and converting in Neg Lab Pro and the results look identical, but I have a file a third of the size.  
What should I be doing.

Thanks.