Lastly, add some noise to restore the appearance of grain lost due to blurring. If you have awide gamut (Adobe RGB) or P3 gamut monitor, then you have better gamut (with Adobe RGB expanding the blues/cyan/greens more than P3, and P3 expanding red/yellow/greens further than Adobe RGB). This technique will add believable depth of field to you images. A 3-stop change in exposure is closer to only losing 2 bits. This is sometimes called 15+1 bits. In this article I wish to discuss the concept of converting 8-bit data up to 16-bit for editing. This is where you will find all of the color information about your file. Ive done "terrible things" to 8-bit Jpegs (edited them really aggressively) and they turned out fine. That said, using 16-bit capture should give you at least an extra bit in Photoshop and may be beneficial. Color depth, also known as bit depth, is essentially how much information each color channel can store in each pixel. It is also important to note that you are likely to run into false banding when viewing images at less than 67% zoom. But the two do interact, because the jumps will get bigger if you use the same bit-depth with a wider gamut. Results from other cameras are likely to vary, and the differences are ISO-dependent so you should test with your own camera. In the new window, select the List All Modes button. Bit depth tells Photoshop how many colors an image can contain. Inevitably, there are some incurable nerds who say its important to work in 16-bit mode for everything, but of course thats not true. 16-bit images have 65,536 colors, and 32-bit images have 16,777,215 colors. Anything else with detail makes it MUCH harder to see the difference in bit depth. Even if the source has been degraded, processing in 16-bits will still yield better results as it will minimize compounding of rounding errors in the math with multiple adjustments. There is no reason to use 32-bits for photography unless you are processing an HDR file. It's important to have at least a small understanding of what bit depth is and when you should use different bit depths when working with your images. Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. To do this, choose Image from the menu bar, navigate to Mode, and select 16 Bits/Channel. Lightrooms white balance tool was easily able to use the gray card to get proper white balance. For the second, Colin Smith experiments with the Lens Blur Filter. Color depth simply refers to the highest number of colors an image can hold. Of course, youll need to convert the RAW to the wide gamut during the initial export, switching the color space later wont recover any colors you throw away earlier in the process. But neither is really necessary, and Ive done plenty of high-end work on a standard monitor. Two scenarios come to mind where 16-bit mode is helpful. I created a software algorithm to generate my gradients in every bit depth from 1 to 14 on the image. But what if your image is set to the wrong depth? If youre not familiar with bit depth, read this article. Others may disagree with me on this, but I have yet to push a file and find banding issues related to ProPhoto in 16-bits. The recommended 16-bits for working files should remain sufficient for a few reasons: (1) thats greater than most monitors and printers are or will be in the foreseeable future and (2) beyond the limits of our ability to see differences. There is no immediate visual difference. Even if portions of your shadows are this underexposed, I cant see a scenario where you would fully correct them to a middle gray. CO was not as good as LR at -5 and nearly unusable at -6ev, while the LR result was surprisingly usable at -6ev. But ProPhoto is a well-defined standard worthy of consideration, so does it create jumps large enough to cause banding issues? What does it all mean, and what really matters? Size. If you were nervous about banding in the sky, you could convert to 16-bit before adding the vignette layer. So, for my purposes, a 10-bit gradient is visually identical to 14-bits or more. Whenever I create a new file it automatically creates it in 16 bit depth, and I never think about it until I either go to use filter gallery or transfer my sketches to illustrator to refine and I cannot . I have to change my screenshots to at least 16 or the artwork will not show in the canvas, but you can see it clearly in the layer view.There's no place to set this to 16 bit by default so you don't have to set this every time? Thank you! Conny's tip: When you have layers as smart objects, Photoshop allows you to set a different bit depth for the individual objects than the one of the source document. So your conference still only has 80 attendees, but now theyre all sitting many metres apart from each other, and the whole thing is completely pointless. But if you process in color, you probably have a little more wiggle room. You would assume that this then means 16-bits means 16-bits per channel in Photoshop. Table 1. You can remove banding in post processing using a combination of Gaussian blur and/or adding noise. (I have not posted the Capture One results here, but both are worse, with the 12-bit file being truly terrible for this extreme underexposure.). Look at the 16-bit scale for the Info panel in Photoshop, which shows a scale of 0-32,768 (which means 32,769 values since we are including 0). So 8-bit = 2^8 = 256 possible integer values. Youll then want to save the file to retain any changes. Your cameras accuracy is not as high as its precision. Monitor vendors want to make their equipment sound sexy, so they typically refer to displays with 8-bits/channel as 24-bit (because you have 3 channels with 8-bits each, which can be used to create roughly 16MM colors). Remember that most issues with 8-bits are caused by making changes to 8-bit data, not the initial conversion. The color cast starts at about 3 stops of underexposure (-3ev), is much more apparent at -4ev, and is a serious issue at -5 and -6. To start, open up your file in Photoshop. (Actually, not even raw data is true 16-bit in most cases. Clear blue skies are probably the most likely. If you were to use a box of crayons as an example, greater bit-depth would be like having more shades (more crayons) and greater gamut would be like having the most saturated color be more bold (regardless of the number of crayons). Switching it to 16-bit fixes it. I've been doing screenshots for UI development for years by screensgrabs, copying and pasting into PS and manipulating there. I do critical work on a 27 Eizo (CG2730). So you can get larger jumps (risks of banding) by either reducing bit depth or increasing the range over which the bits are applied. There are a few different ways to change the bit depth of an image. I would recommend making all other changes (flattening, color space conversion, sharpening, etc) before conversion to 8-bits. Amazing how that JPEG2000 file shrinks down~10,000X to only 2MB. First, those times when you unavoidably need to make aggressive adjustments to your photo in Photoshop, rather than in raw. The file size of a 16-bit image is twice the size of a 8-bit image. Color depth refers to the amount of tonal variation found in an image. A color image is typically composed of red, green, and blue pixels to create color. 2-Bit. ProPhoto is a good choice to keep all printable colors. If we never edited photos, there would be no need to add any more bits than the human eye can see. For several reasons: Based on the discussion above, it should be clear that 8-bits is not enough. Typically, the more data each color channel can hold, the better. If you print at home, you can just create a copy of your 16-bit working file and finalize it (flatten, sharpen, change color space if needed, etc). This next variant is the processed 12-bit image. It is also surprisingly useful for such an extreme adjustment, but has some clear issues. The government is asking for 24 bits total (not per channel). RGB mode images are made up of three color channels (Red, Green and Blue). This can start to make small gaps between values turn into large gaps. Photoshop does actually use 16-bits per channel. The rest of the photo would still (in reality) be 8-bit, but the sky gradient would be true 16-bit. Next, select the Image tab from the menu bar at the top of the screen and find Mode. It would be convenient if all bit-depths could be compared directly, but there are some variations in terminology that are helpful to understand . Color space is gamut (the range over which the bits are applied), so a very large gamut could theoretically cause banding if it stretches your bits too thin. However, you can help guard against potential issues by ensuring that Photoshop is using dithering for the conversion to 8-bits (see previous section). If so, why bother with 16-bits? Copyright 2022 Adobe. It is possible to see banding immediately in 8-bits. Yes, Photoshop does allow you to convert your 8-bit file to 16-bit, but it doesn't truly turn it into 16-bit data. To give a little more detail on my methods, I created an image that is 16,384 pixels wide which allows me exactly 1 pixel for every value in a 14-bit gradient. If your source file is only available in 8-bits (such as a stock JPG), you should immediately convert the layered working document to 16-bits. 12-bit files are a very reasonable option. If you really want to maximize your bits, check out the betaRGB or eciRGB v2 profiles (which contain all print/display colors with much less waste than ProPhoto). Which means that an 8-bit RGB image in Photoshop will have a total of 24-bits per pixel (8 for red, 8 for green, and 8 for blue). In reality, 8-bits is fine for final print output. Download our free iPad app at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-training-courses-from/id418130423?mt=8More detail. Using dithering will often reduce the appearance of banding if your bands are close to 1 pixel wide (ie, dithering wont hide bands in documents above a certain resolution; a Nikon D850 file is almost twice as wide as you would need to display every value in a 12-bit gradient). You can see through transparent areas of a layer to the layers below. Want all of our free Photoshop videos? And if you dont see it right away, even modest adjustments can expose it. Photoshop offers 8, 16, and 32-bit file formats. But it seems your conference is going to be enormously popular, so you announce youre changing the venue to a huge hall thats big enough for 1600 people. What if you have a fancy camera that captures 16-bit RAW files should you be worried about Photoshops 15-bit quality? So a JPG (which by definition is an RGB image with 8bits/channel) will actually be a 24 bit image. For displays, the terminology changes. Red 8 bits + Green 8 bits + Blue 8 bits = 24 bits. Leave it as 8bit/channel in photoshop or lightroom and you're fine. Early computer monitors had "single bit" color depththe pixel was either on or off. Be sure to calibrate the monitor though if you are sending files out for print. Lightroom was unable to get a proper white balance from the gray card, there is simply too much color noise at the pixel level in this file. In reality, the longest dimensions of ProPhoto compared to Adobe RGB arent quite double the linear distance in XYZ coordinates. For the most part, 16-bit images allow for the most tonal range without exceeding printer capabilities. Honestly I am NOT sure - I did open the "camera raw" setting under edit >preference> camera raw but didnt see a setting there unless I missed something. A 4-stop change in exposure is on the order of losing a little over 4 bits. Photoshop lists the bit depth as Bits/Channel. Changing Bit Depth in Photoshop If you opened a RAW or other type of high quality, uncompressed, image straight into Photoshop, don't worry, you can easily change the bit depth setting there too. In addition to 8 Bits/Channel images, Photoshop can also work with images that contain 16 or 32 Bits/Channel.. We are making any minor errors or rounding error in the data more obvious. It is typically recommended that you use the Save As option to save a copy of the new bit depth file so that you can keep a copy of the original file just in case any changes need to be made. So I copied the white balance from the above image, which resulting in an image which was slightly warm and definitely a bit too green. Instead, Ive posted a full-resolution JPEG2000 image (ie 16-bit; I do not see any differences between it and the original detail, even when processing it with extreme curves). Furthermore, RAW processing software matters, so I also tried processing the same images in Capture One (testing auto, Film Standard, and Linear curves for the D850). Most cameras will let you save files in 8-bits (JPG) or 12 to 16-bits (RAW). You are recommended to select a color mode with higher bit depth to display more colors and get a better visual experience. The difference between 8 bit, 16 bit, and 32 bit is the number of color values that can be displayed. If you can afford it, a 10-bit display is ideal if you arent on a budget. Adding that margin of safety on top of a goal of at least 9-10 bits to avoid visible banding gets you to roughly 14-15 bits as an ideal target. A Ferrari is theoretically faster than a Ford truck, but maybe not on a dirt road. Keeping in mind that we only need to expand dynamic range a few stops with HDR and that we really only need 12-14 bits in a single RAW file, this is an acceptable format that increases quality without creating enormous files.) So from a quality perspective, it would be very fair to say that Adobes 16-bit mode is actually only 15-bits. If it was a pixel, it would be pure black or pure white. And opening a 12-bit file as 16-bits is really no different than opening an 8-bit JPG and then converting to 16-bits. I have printed hundreds of very high-quality images that were uploaded to my vendor as 8-bit JPGs and the final images look amazing (exported from Lightroom with 90% quality and Adobe RGB color space). Im not posting the 12-bit original RAW as it looks the same before processing. Another way to change the bit depth of an image is to convert it to a different file format. A while back I was messing with some settings in photoshop and must have accidently done something wrong. Therefore, it is recommended that any images that will be printed are set to at least a 16-bit color depth. I do not see notable differences in noise, but there are huge differences in color cast in deep shadows (with the 12-bit file shifting a bit yellow and quite a bit green) and some minor differences in shadow contrast (with the 12-bit file being a little too contrasty). This is a pretty lumpy scale and not very useful for a photograph. If you are using Lightroom to export to JPG, dithering is used automatically (you dont have a choice). Sometimes we see files referred to as being 24 of 48-bit. This is where you will find all of the color information about your file. Even using extreme curves and other adjustments that go well beyond how I imagine anyone would edit these photos, I am not able to see any issues. Photoshop allows you to change the bit depth of an image in the "Image" menu, under the "Mode" sub-menu. I rarely would adjust RAW exposure out to +/-4 stops, but it can happen with extreme situations or portions of poor exposures. A single bit has 2 possible values, 0 or 1. Click the button at the bottom of the ACR screen to . So why doesnt Photoshop open a 12 or 14-bit RAW file as 12 or 14 bits? But if you do run into banding (most likely if you get an 8-bit stock image), you can take the following steps to minimize it: Download the FREEluminosity masking panel . I want to finish this page on a note of practicality 8-bit data is nowhere near as flaky as you might have been lead to believe. A 16-bit RGB or LAB image in Photoshop would have 48-bits per pixel, etc. Why does Adobe do this? In Photoshop select save for web, once the window pops up on the preset . If we manipulate the photograph enough, this will start to show up as banding in the image. To test the limits for my Nikon D850, I shot a series of exposures bracketed at 1 stop intervals using both 12 and 14-bit RAW capture with my D850 at base ISO under controlled lighting. Images with 32 Bits/Channel are . I would gladly share the original PSB file, but it is over 20GB. Im sorry to say theres almost no benefit to this. Before we compare the various options, lets first discuss what the naming means. For one, it would be a lot of work to develop both Photoshop and file formats to support other bit depths. After all that discussion, it really comes down to a few simple rules. THANK YOU. Bit depth is one of those terms weve all run into, but very few photographers truly understand. Release the cursor and the image is converted to the pixel depth you chose. One way is to use an image editing program like Photoshop. The first version (on top) is the processed 14-bit image. But if youre familiar with mathematics, youll know that even a 10-bit file has a hell of a lot more data than an 8-bit file.). If your print lab accepts 16-bit formats (TIFF, PSD, JPEG2000), thats probably the way to go but ask your vendor what they recommend if you are unsure. If you can shoot 16-bits, thats fine but probably overkill. Color depth determines how many colors can be reproduced in an image. Locating the color depth of an image is a generally easy task. As a general rule, color depth, or bit depth, should be set to the 16-bit mode when making prints. Skip the 32-bit working space, unless you are using it as a way to combine multiple RAW files and then multi-process them as 16-bit layers (HDR workflows). With a 16-bit workflow, I see no reason to worry about banding/posterization with ProPhoto RGB and I use ProPhoto RGB as my primary color space these days. Lets say you had shot in Jpeg mode (Jpegs are always 8-bit) and blown out the sky, so you wanted to add a gentle blue vignette layer to the white sky. This may be helpful if working in an 8-bit file. Here's an example of the canvas vs layer view in 8-bit mode. RGB Color, Grayscale, CMYK Color, Lab Color, and Multichannel modes can all be edited using 16 Bits/Channel in Photoshop. Heres an example comparing a black to white gradient at different bit depths. A quick 60 second Photoshop tutorial showing you how to change the bit depth of an image In other words, there is noise in your image. And if you convert color spaces, be aware that there is a dithering option for 8-bit images under Edit / Color Settings / Conversion Options. Worth testing your camera to see if you can use a lesser setting to save on file size. Typical real-world example would be various bands showing up in the clear blue sky or excess noise. But most importantly, there are huge benefits to using a file format with a few extra bits (as well discuss later). Id almost say there is no banding at 9-bits. So go with 16-bits. Defining a range with a bunch of unused (imaginary) colors is wasteful/innefficient and causes larger jumps over the range of image values we care about. But what about if you are sending your images over the internet to be printed by a pro lab? Aside from P3 monitors, there are printers commercially available which exceed the AdobeRGB gamut as well (particularly in the cyans). Color Space determines the maximum values or range (commonly known as gamut). Because Lightroom only allows +5 stops of exposure, I also adjusted the curve to bring in the top-right point to 80% for the both of the versions below. Subsequent edits on 8-bit images will not degrade as badly if that math is performed in a 16-bit mode. Heres a better one lets say you are arranging a conference in a small conference room that seats 80 people. As you apply Curves or other adjustments, you are expanding the tonal range of various parts of the image. Download our free iPad app at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/video-training-courses-from/id418130423?mt=8More details on this Photoshop training can be seen at http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-adobe-photoshop-cc.html This clip is one example from the complete course. Most of Graphic software, by default, work on 8 Bit per color channel, providing two options for Color Modes (RGB & CMYK) and default value for Color Profile as per your choice of Color Mode.. A 8 Bit document generally means 8 Bits of color information per color component or color channel. Want all of our free Photoshop videos? However, gamut is another consideration. To see out the difference, consider the following simplified visual example: As you can see, increasing bit-depth reduces risk of banding by creating more increments, while expanding color space (wider gamut) enables the use of more extreme colors. Every time we add another bit, the number of potential combinations doubles. 8-bit displays (which were similar to Indexed . Whenever I create a new file it automatically creates it in 16 bit depth, and I never think about it until I either go to use filter gallery or transfer my sketches to illustrator to refine and I cannot import it as layers. How to change default bit depth. The problem you show with 8 bit docs not displaying correctly, on some systems, should be resolved in v23.3.1 released today. Bringing it to simple terms, each color . However, understanding color depth can help you maximize quality and choose the right tonal range for each one of your projects. I havent spent the time to investigate how it all nets out when you factor in log-scaling used on the data, but my sense is that using ProPhoto is roughly like throwing roughly 1-bit of data. 2-bit images are typically called bitmaps, and they contain only . And our cameras often offer 12 vs 14-bit files (though you might get 16-bit with a medium format camera). Keep reading for a quick guide on changing color depth in Photoshop, and why its important. For that reason, it is worth using a wider gamut now so that your working file can take advantage of better printers and monitors later, such as ProPhoto RGB. There are other ranges as well, such as 12-bit and 14-bit, but these arent used in Photoshop, so we wont get into them here. According to Adobe developer Chris Cox, this allows Photoshop to work much more quickly and provides an exact midpoint for the range, which is helpful for blend modes). This affects processing speed, memory usage, and hard drive storage. [Note that Im not saying these arent excellent cameras that produce better images, they probably are Im just saying that I dont think Photoshops 15+1 bit depth design is something to worry about when processing files from these cameras]. I just set it to 16-bit pasted a file, then CTRL-N and it was 8-bit again. If you dont see banding on your monitor after conversion to 8-bits, you should be ok to print. It indicates how many bits of data are used to represent a color value, or how many are used in each channel. This noise typically makes banding a little harder to see at a given bit-depth (ie, real world images dont typically show banding quite as easily as the smooth gradients Ive used above.). When you combine 3 bits, you can have eight possible values (000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111). How you choose to edit your photos ultimately comes down to your system and what you hope to accomplish. RGB images with 8bits per channel (Bits/Channel or bpc) are sometimes called 24bit images (8 bits x 3 channels = 24 bits of data for each pixel). Here in my Windows 11, it is Display adapter properties for Display 1. I would almost certainly miss it if I werent looking for it. In reality, you will probably never that many bits for several reasons: Taking all of this into consideration, 12-bits sounds like a very reasonable level of detail that should allow for significant post-processing. Below are some extreme examples from my testing. Here's an example of the canvas vs layer view in 8-bit mode. In general, the number of possible choices is 2 raised to the number of bits. A better option would be 30-48 bits (aka Deep Color), which is 10-16 bits/channel -with anything over 10 bits/channel being overkill for display in my opinion.
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