Topic awaiting preservation: Photoshop 8bit or 16bit? (Page 1 of 1)

Hi all, I am used to working with photoshop 7, but am currently trying out photoshop cs. I notice when i create a new canvas i can choose rgb/cmyk etc but also 8bit or 16bit.

Im wondering for print work what should i choose, and what is the default for PS7 which i used to use?

Thanks.

Well at the moment using 16bit has it limitations, most output units that I am aware of require or weill convert the file to 8bit anyhow. The exception my be some newer imagesetters and I would guess it would be limited to grayscale images. I doubt anyone actual see any diffrence at typical line screening use for offset and gravure printing any ways it would simply be a waste of network bandwidth, RIP time and system resources.

Not thats not to say 16 bit doesn't have it's use. Archiving originals is one, and it's best to start with the most information you can when dealing with images. I always scan in 16bit (Sometimes labled as 48bit, (16 per channel)). Then I make my global color corrections, major edits, and scaling to the 16bit image in LAB and RGB, perhap then moving one to a few isolated corrctions that are easyer done in RGB or Lab. Once I have all the major correction completed. I then archive the 16bit image as a tiff and PSD. I then covert the image to 8bit and CYMK to make my final color specific corrections, such as match swatch, correct flesh tones.

The default for PS7 was 8bit, as many of the tools didn't suport 16 bit mode, more tools are supported in CS but there is still limitations. You should try using 16 bit to get a feel of what can and can't be used before you get to far into a client project.

J. Stuart J.

Ok thanks, i had a feeling that was the case. See how my PC handles 16 bit nehow . Ive been reading up on it and i guess there is the age old debate that the human eye cant tell the difference anyhow. The problem is that we can see some colors that you only produce with 16bit and not 8 bit, which is where the difference must come in.

anyhow thats good, just wanted to make sure if i did 8bit files that i wasnt providing a low quality file