Digital BW, The Print

Hello Steve,

The most important advantage to a RAW capture is you have the ability
"develop" the frame during editing and change things like ISO, white
balance, etc., within limits. Once you're happy with the file, you can
transfer it to Photoshop in 8-bit mode and edit without fear.

If you're going to print the image without any further editing, stay
in 8-bit. If you're going to use the edited file for further
manipulation in another edit, you can still edit in 8-bit, save a
flattened copy of it in 16-bit, or "apply image" it to the subsequent
16-bit edit session.

In other words, only use 16-bit edits when you absolutely have to.
Within the confine of an 8-bit layered PS file, Photoshop always use
highest precision math operations (unless their engineers perform some
funny data conversion to their programming buffers). It's when it
saves it to jpeg, tiff, or flattened PSD that it saves the final
computed value and you lose the 8 LSB (least significant bits) that
would otherwise still be there if you save in 16-bit. This precision
loss will also happen if the file is "copy merged" or "apply image" or
"duplicate flattened" to be used in another document.

So in your case,

1. edit in 8 bit and save as 8-bit layered PSD, or 16-bit flattened
PSD or TIFF for future edits.
2. edit in 8 bit and save as 8-bit as a final version for printing or
web slideshow, etc. (but keep the original jpeg around).

Even for folks that start out with RAW, edit in 8-bit any way, and
when problem is detected, convert to 16-bit then apply image from the
16-bit redevelopment from RAW (unless you have accidentally deleted
it). All adjustment layers still apply.

--nick

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Kobrin"
<kobrins@...> wrote:
>
> Up to this point my inputs to B&W processing have been limited to
> scanned film and raw files.  However, I have a new camera that does
> not have a raw option.  Am I correct that the first steps in a JPEG
> workflow should be to save the file as tiff and then change the mode
> to 16 bit?
> 
> Steve
>