Processing 16 Bit Images

[Edd]

Okay so I use Elements 6 for my PP.

I've just been wondering if there is any advantage to being able to process and save 16 bit images, I'm sure there are many.

However in Elements 6 I can do very little with 16 Bit image . Would upgrading software open more of a door or do Lightroom and the CS range still limit what can be done with 16 Bit images.

Thanks

Ed

[Traumuh]

Why are you working with 16-bit files? Even the 1D series only produces 14-bit RAW files. There is an option to work with 32-bit in CS2, so I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[Edd]

I'm exploring options for trying (???) to improve the quality of my images.

Now I have seen that we can save Tiffs as 16 Bit files, so that means more data/better quality I'm assuming.

Therefore my thoughts were "can I process my images as 16 Bit Tiffs", I don't know if thats possible. Its certainly not possible in Elements, not that I was expecting it to be, so I wondered if better applications allowed you to do this.

Sorry if the question sounds strange I'm just trying to explore avenues and my knowledge of computers and PP is somewhat limited.

Thanks for the info.

Ed

[Traumuh]

I'm not sure about Elements... In Photoshop there is an option to open-as, but I find it doesn't work. I'm not 100% sure, but if you shoot RAW and convert to TIFF you shouldn't gain or lose any color information. Also you probably shouldn't bother yourself with TIFF files unless you are being payed. They take up bamboozles of memory. A guy on POTN claimed that his TIFF files from his 5DII were >120MB.

[gldiana]

I'm exploring options for trying (???) to improve the quality of my images.

Ed,
remember that when it comes to resolution you cannot improve the quality of an image, just retain it. You would lose quality in a image shot at 14 bit if you were to reduce it to 8 bit (this is the planar color resolution, for the layman: the number of colors) but you will gain nothing other than file size from going to 14 bit to 16. The computer cannot create data that was not there in the first place. Hope this makes sense.

[gldiana]

A guy on POTN claimed that his TIFF files from his 5DII were >120MB.

I can confirm that. My RAW files at 21.1 MP from the Mark II can be around 80 MB and RAW has some lossless compression unlike TIFF (which does only if you select compression, but that reduces compatibility).

[Edd]

Thanks for that Luca it makes perfect sense.

Just checked in the manual for the Canon 40D and RAW is 14 bit.

All my editing is done in 8 bit so I guess I'm losing quality, which I assume now is colour related. My train of thought was if I could edit in 16 bit then maybe the loss quality wouldn't be as great.

Last night I took two shots of the same landscape one with the normal camera sharpness and the other set to maximum, I couldn't see a difference between then when viewed at 100%.

From time to time I float around on POTN and see some pin sharp images and I'm trying to work my way towards those sort of results, I understand that the lens will probabley play a big part in that quality.

Thanks for the info

Ed

[gldiana]

Ed,

actually the biggest part is being played by your monitor. Unless you have one of those huber-expensive photography monitors the difference between an 8 bit image and a 12 or 14 bit will show only on photos that have a large amount of data in shadow/highlights.

[Traumuh]

Huber-exensive!

[Edd]

Thanks guys,

I guess I'm chasing my own tail a bit !!!

Ed