When you say the "PC video system" do you mean PC as in Mac or PC or just all desktop computers? Are there any computer/card combos that can really work in 12 bit?
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As far as I understand Karl Lang's [a href=\"http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9613&view=findpost&p=54301]Story[/url]. current computers including Apple and Photoshop only sent 8 bit data to the monitor. Both videocard hardware and the windows/photoshop system needs to be updated before more then 8 bit data can be output to a monitor (any monitor).
a practical example:
asume that a current LCD can display 1000 different real life reds. This means the smallest red change you will see is about 1000/256 (8bit 0....255). a monitor with a larger gamut that can display lets say 1500 reds will cause a smallest red change of 1500/256. So the wide gamut display has a wider colour range, but the colours can be selected less accuratly. This could cause some kind of posterization.
But this is my interpretation of Karl Langs story, but I understand what he means (at least I think I do ).
Note:
I did some googling... on Windows Vista... I did find some articles about WCS (WIndows Colour System) it seems it should be ready for high dynamic range imaging. But even then both the video card, DVI connection and monitor should accept more then 8 bit. So I really don't know if a current Wide Gamut monitor and video card is ready for this.
According to
this link Windows Vista introduces the scRGB colour space that uses 16 bits.