A followup...
When I reduced the size somewhat, but still over 10000 pixels in the longer dimension, I was able to preview the image. But it would not load into the image frame. I reduced the longest side to about 9000 pixels and then it would load.
For the current project, this is fine. Even if I have full-page scans, I can break them horizontally into two separate TIF files and import them.
I would like to know what the hard limits are and where I might run into other size limits. I am currently running 50% of the memory capacity of the machine -- 12 GB on an Core i7 930.
So, I've solved this problem for now and will move ahead with Scribus. I have Adobe InDesign 2.0 (before the Creative Suite) and Adobe won't provide any credit towards an upgrade even though I've been keeping PhotoShop (CS2, CS3, CS5) and Lightroom (2,3,&4) current(ish). InDesign 2.0 does not have the problem described here and looks as good as Scribus within tolerances of printers, etc.
Microsoft Publisher 2003 (which I've never liked but the kids like it for school projects) doesn't look as good as the old InDesign and Scribus.
I know this is an oddball, but retyping and proofing the republished text (64 pages) when we have original photo-typeset text seems like the difficult way to go. We're going back to the Historical Society and scanning original photos again. These also at 1200 dpi for most and the nice thing is eventually we'll have colour images (a few) for the electronic copies if people want those instead of printed (Staples or online electrostatic printing) black-and-white.
Cheers,
Richard
Thanks!
Cheers,
Richard