Digital BW, The Print

As I promised,there goes the comment from Dan about this issue...

Andr\ufffd writes,

>>I've been following the thread about 8 x 16 bits editing,and a question
came
to my mind? Are the considerations you made valid for BW images, or can we
severely degrade the image doing tonalmanipulations in 8 bits/pixel?>>

-Dan's answer:

Technically there is more of a case for 16-bit in B/W than in color images,
however it's unlikely to make any real difference.

Bit depth works along the same lines, although it doesn't have nearly as
pronounced an effect as, resolution. The higher the resolution of the
original capture, the more pixels have to be averaged to achieve final
output. This results in more smoothness, more consistency--if that's what
you
really need. It results in oversoftness, lack of focus, if it's not.
Similarly, less resolution provides a crisper, snappier look, if that's what
you want, or a harsh and jagged look if it isn't.

One can vary resolution quite a bit without hurting anything but it's
definitely possible to scan at a resolution that is so high that it actually
harms quality, just as it is to scan at a resolution so low that the result
will be disagreeable.

Varying bit depth has a similar effect, but much less of it. That is,
pictures corrected in 8-bit will, if the correction was very aggressive,
seem
very slightly sharper than those done in 16-bit. While the difference is
basically inconsequential, if we held a gun to people's head and forced them
to choose between two color images, most of the time, if they saw a
difference at all, they would choose the one corrected in 8-bit. Some of the
time, of course, they'd choose the 16-bit version.

In color, having extra channels softens the image, taking away some of the
16-bit advantage. If one channel is extra harsh it's not such a big deal. In
B/W, this effect doesn't exist, so there would be a lot more cases where one
might have a slight preference for a 16-bit correction.

Dan Margulis