Digital BW, The Print

Hello Tom:

The number of shades of gray in 8-bit is 2 to the 8th power (hence  the 
256 shades of gray.)
Multiply that binary to the 16th power and see how many more shades of 
gray that you end up with.  It's thousands.
Would you rather have thousands of shades of gray or 256 shades to work 
with in your b&w prints?
If you do really make big changes to your files, and you squeeze CS for 
all that it's worth (something that I'm still
certainly trying to figure out how to do), you'll find that you have 
lots more latitude in your shadow detail than you could
ever possibly hope to achieve in 8 bit.

Peter Gorwin

On Mar 5, 2005, at 1:53 PM, Tom Andrews wrote:

>
>
> Hi,
>
> In my own experience I have yet to find any use for 16-bit files, 
> which agrees
> with Dan Margulis' ideas (check out long discussions on Colortheory 
> list).  I
> scan MF film on a Nikon8000 and make prints to 32x40 with an Epson 10K
> and find 8-bit files just as good as 16-bit files for correcting in 
> PS.  I have
> tested this with a number of files.  However, I almost never make 
> really large
> changes in my files.  Recently I have taken to doing my scans in 
> 8-bit, which
> gives me a 250Mb rather than a 500Mb file.  So I get twice the storage
> capacity of my hard drives.  I am always ready to be proven wrong, 
> however.
> Cheers,
>
> Tom Andrews
> http://www.wildlandart.com
>
>
>
>
>
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