Digital BW, The Print

Another way to say it is that 8-bits contains just about the minimum
grayscale information needed to make a full range print.  Most
photographs initially contain much (e.g. 10 times) more contrast, so
the  digitised information should be stored with more range at least
until the stage in your workflow where the image is compressed into
the 8 bits normally adequate for printing (in camera if jpeg
compression is used, in raw converter or in subsequent image
processing if 16 bit tifs were used).  Even then having a few
bits extra allows for errors, going back to fix something etc. As far
as I have seen the only disadvantage of 16 bits is a little extra cost
for software and file storage.

Ken  


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Adam Maas
<mykroft@m...> wrote:
> Gary Brown wrote:
> > Could someone elaborate, on the advantages of using 16 bit
conversions vs 8
> > bit.
> > 
> > My digital capture is done with a 20D in RAW (obviously). I use
Raw Shooter
> > to convert, I prefer it over the converter in CS2.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Gary
> > 
> > 
> > www.pbase.com/garyallenbrown
> > 
> > 
> 
> A lot of editing will result in some discarded data, especially
levels 
> editing. With 8 bit, this starts to affect the image quite quickly, 
> resulting in a very jagged histogram. 16 bit alleviates this issue.
> 
> Capture/edit in 16 bit, export to 8 bit for posting/printing is a
good 
> rule of thumb.
> 
> -Adam