8 bit or 16 bit

[Infrared digital]

Is it better to work in 8 bit or 16 bit when creating hi-res still images ?

[joconnell]

Use 16 bit - the only thing it'll affect is hard drive space. You'll get smoother gradients in skies and so on. Photoshop doesn't support as many filters or controls in 16 bit mode though.

[thablanch]

8 bits, to have all the filters aviable....

[suurland]

Always 16bit. 8bit just doesn't make good enough gradients.

/Thomas

[Clifton Santiago]

32 bit

[jreynolds]

If Photoshop is your only option...

*Render 32-bit or take RAW 12-Bit images (CS2 should open these as 16-bit)

*Convert to 16-bit in PS, save your PSDs in this mode and edit. The limited tools in 16-bit mode are sufficient and improved each new release so you want to use the latest version of course.

*Save your final output as 16-bit TIF or EXR if you'll be taking your flattened PS comp into another app or back to Max for reprojection.

*Or save as 8-bit if you are making a final still to present to a client.

Otherwise use 32-bit via Digital Fusion which isn't so much fun for painting

[mdi]

for print I work in 8 bit.

why?.....well 99 times out of 100 8bit will be more than fine for just about everything. The only time you should ever need to work in 16bit is when youre dealing with gradents over a large area, but even then you can add some noise to remove the banding, or work up the gradients in 16 and add noise then convert down to 8bit.

I was working in a 450mbPSD file the other day that was about 8k wide, it also had alot of gradients and was banding realy badly, I converted it to 16bit, blurred off the gradients (which where things like glows on layers) added noise and converted back to 8bit, worked fine. Also, I did try to save the file in 16bit but ps would not save it because it was over 2gig in size when saved, another reson to work in 8bit.