I6 bit - anyone use it?

[Dick Roadnight]

Hi, all.

All the top pro cameras are now 16 bit, and 16 bit is supported most/all the way through the CS4 workflow, and it gives you better smoothe transitions in images that have had the contrast increased...

I have a 16 bit camera, and assumed that the default formats imported into (3FR), processed by (FFF) and exported from (DNG?) Phocus were 16 bit, but they arrive in PhotoShop as 8 bit... I checked after seeing the comb effect on the histogram, which indicates that some levels have been missed.

But a search for "16 bit" drew a blank on this forum, and there is no mention of it in Phocus... so how do I get a 16 bit file out of the camera or chip, and into Photoshop?

Is it my  £6 "Jacobs" card reader that is not 16 bit compatible?

Do I need a special 16 bit colourspace?

Do most people who pay megabucks for 16 bit cameras use 8 bit all the time and never realise?

[James R]

Hi, all.

All the top pro cameras are now 16 bit, and 16 bit is supported most/all the way through the CS4 workflow, and it gives you better smoothe transitions in images that have had the contrast increased...

I have a 16 bit camera, and assumed that the default formats imported into (3FR), processed by (FFF) and exported from (DNG?) Phocus were 16 bit, but they arrive in PhotoShop as 8 bit... I checked after seeing the comb effect on the histogram, which indicates that some levels have been missed.

But a search for "16 bit" drew a blank on this forum, and there is no mention of it in Phocus... so how do I get a 16 bit file out of the camera or chip, and into Photoshop?

Is it my  £6 "Jacobs" card reader that is not 16 bit compatible?

Do I need a special 16 bit colourspace?

Do most people who pay megabucks for 16 bit cameras use 8 bit all the time and never realise?

Nikon D3 offers 12 and 14 bit A/D conversion.  I always shoot in 14 bit.  My point of view is to get the best you can out of the camera, provided it doesn't hamper more advantages aspects of the camera.  In the case of a D300, shooting 14 bit slows down the FPS rate, so, the gain may not be worth the loss of FPS.  

I would assume that any person buying a high end camera is familiar with the +/- of that camera.

Now working in 8 or 16 bit mode in PS is another story.  I work in 16 bit mode with raw files, unless some filters or actions do not support that mode.  16 bit images must be converted to 8 bit if exporting them as jpegs.

[Panopeeper]

All the top pro cameras are now 16 bit, and 16 bit is supported most/all the way through the CS4 workflow, and it gives you better smoothe transitions in images that have had the contrast increased...

I'm afraid you are mixing up things, which belong in different books.

x-bit depth of the sensor data has nothing to do with y-bit depth of the image processing pipeline.

I have a 16 bit camera

There is no commercially available camera with 16 effective bits, maybe with the exception of Leica DMR (I am saying this, because I can not prove that the Leica DMR's bit depth is effectively less than 16bit). For example the Leica M8 is "only" 8bit, but THAT 8bit is not comparable to other 12bit or 14bit.

[PeterAit]

Hi, all.

All the top pro cameras are now 16 bit, and 16 bit is supported most/all the way through the CS4 workflow, and it gives you better smoothe transitions in images that have had the contrast increased...

I have a 16 bit camera, and assumed that the default formats imported into (3FR), processed by (FFF) and exported from (DNG?) Phocus were 16 bit, but they arrive in PhotoShop as 8 bit... I checked after seeing the comb effect on the histogram, which indicates that some levels have been missed.

But a search for "16 bit" drew a blank on this forum, and there is no mention of it in Phocus... so how do I get a 16 bit file out of the camera or chip, and into Photoshop?

Is it my  £6 "Jacobs" card reader that is not 16 bit compatible?

Do I need a special 16 bit colourspace?

Do most people who pay megabucks for 16 bit cameras use 8 bit all the time and never realise?

It's a setting when you open an image from LightRoom or Camera Raw into PhotoShop. Read the manual.

Peter

[Dick Roadnight]

It's a setting when you open an image from LightRoom or Camera Raw into PhotoShop. Read the manual.

Peter

Which **** manual?

I have well over a thousand pages of manual, and I did not know where to start looking, as I did not know where the files get converted from 16 bit to 8 bit.... Martin Evening's Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers takes a page or two to tell us how wonderful 16 bit is, but I cannot find any reference to the setting you mentioned.

I have allowed myself about a week to work my way through the manuals, and needed an image to work on.... perhaps he should have put the capture and camera raw section at the front of the book... but the Raw chapter does not mention it.

Are you telling me that Phocus is outputting 16 bit files, and Adobe Camera is then throwing away half the data without asking me?

I have been using the "Open in editor" option in Phocus, so the files get into ACR before I get into it to set import options, if there are any.

I have lightroom, but have not installed it yet - what does it do that I cannot do with Phocus and ACR?

I was aware of the Image/16 bit menu option, but thought that it would just convert to 16 bit after I had lost the data.

When you first get the pic in ACR, it tells you at the bottom of the picture that it is 8 Bit - that is what made me think the file was 8 bit, but if you click on that info, you have the option to of calling it 16 bit - does this retain all the captured data, or does it just convert an 8 bit file into 16 bit? The pic looks OK, but I still get rough looking histograms after very little editing.

[madmanchan]

Dick, can you post an example file that has been exported from Phocus, before it has been opened in PS or any other software?

[Jonathan Wienke]

Are you telling me that Phocus is outputting 16 bit files, and Adobe Camera is then throwing away half the data without asking me?

If you haven't changed the output settings in Camera RAW from 8-bit to 16-bit, quite possibly yes.

When you first get the pic in ACR, it tells you at the bottom of the picture that it is 8 Bit - that is what made me think the file was 8 bit, but if you click on that info, you have the option to of calling it 16 bit - does this retain all the captured data, or does it just convert an 8 bit file into 16 bit? The pic looks OK, but I still get rough looking histograms after very little editing.

That setting does NOT tell you what the image is, it tells you the format the image will be imported from Camera RAW to Photoshop. The setting that determines whether Camera RAW gets an 8-bit or 16-bit image will be in Phocus somewhere. You'll have to read Phocus' manual to see what settings are necessary to ensure 16-bit output. DNG export is very likely to be 16-bit though.

[Dick Roadnight]

"Are you telling me that Phocus is outputting 16 bit files, and Adobe Camera is then throwing away half the data without asking me?

If you haven't changed the output settings in Camera RAW from 8-bit to 16-bit, quite possibly yes."


When you first get the pic in ACR, it tells you in blue at the bottom of the picture that the file will be imported as 8 Bit: if you click on that info, you have the option to of changing it to 16 bit.

Hasselblad H3Ds and Phocus work only in 16 bit - there is no option to save space.

Thank you for your help, Jonathan