Re: 8 verses 16 bit

["Preston Earle" <PEarle@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"John Henry Galindo" <photo@mcn.org> asked: "Will someone please tell me
the advantage(s) of working with 16 bit verses 8 bit files. Better yet,
is there an online tutorial?"

"David Chien" <chiendh@uci.edu> opined: "Human color vision studies
easily show that the human eye can easily see more colors than what the
8-bit color range can support."

"Hersch Nitikman" <hersch@silcom.com> added: "Let's accept that a
healthy human eye, and the brain that processes its input are capable of
distinguishing more shades than 8bitsx3colors can produce"


On the other hand, let's accept that human vision *can't* discern
16+million colors. (I don't know the exact number, but I'm thinking I've
seen the number 800,000.)

The important question is whether there is any benefit to using high-bit
color. Theoretically there is. Practically, for computer generated
images and for grayscale images, there is. Practically, for color
images, the jury is still out. Real-world color images that benefit from
16-bit manipulations are as rare as Big Foot--maybe they exist but very
few people have seen them.

Preston Earle
PEarle@triad.rr.com


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