16bit versus 8bit editing. What a difference 16 bit makes!

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BrianI

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Brian
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At the moment my photo editing system runs Ubuntu 9.04, and I tend to process my images using a combination of ufraw for the raw conversion, and Gimp 2.6 for the editing.

However recently I've been able to get cinepaint 0.25 installed on my system, http://www.cinepaint.org/, and I've had a quick fiddle with a couple of pics to see if the extra 8 bits of colour make much of a difference.

The images below aren't much of a real test, but I can certainly see how 16bit editing keeps detail in the pic!


Looks like I've finally got a 16bit workflow on a linux system,
Of course you could say, "why not just make your life easier and buy Windows + Adobe CS4 and be done with it?". Well I could, but where would be the fun in that?




1. 8 bit:
3549433666_92856aaa2a_o.jpg


2. 16 bit:
3618013908_bfc90ac7cd_o.jpg
 
Using the same post processing, there should be no difference between 8 and 16 bits on an internet navigator.
Between those two, I prefer the 8 bits version. The other has more information is the shadows, but because of that it's lacking contrast. At the same time you lost information in the highlights between the clouds, which doesn't look good in my opinion. ;)
 
I think I have to agree. I don't think there is more actual detail there, just differing contrast and colour.

If I understand correctly, 16bit is only helpful to keep blends smooth particularly when you are pushing the contrast.

Graham
 
16 bit does make the color space bigger, but it will only be on your computer. once uploaded to the web, the color space is abbreviated. and also i don't think any of the printing machines supports such massive color space
 
ricky1980 said:
16 bit does make the color space bigger, but it will only be on your computer. once uploaded to the web, the color space is abbreviated. and also i don't think any of the printing machines supports such massive color space
Click to expand...

Exactly what I said. It's impossible to see any difference on the web.
I'm not sure about printing, but printers also use limited colors spaces so, you're probably right.
 
This is a topic I was thinking about quite recently.
Due to my workflow, all my processed files get saved as uncompressed TIFFS.
I realised that I was going overboard and reverted to 8bit instead of 16 bit processing (except for tonemapping / HDR, those are 16 bit).

TBH I've not noticed the difference really.
 
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