8 bit versus 16 bit

jnrpotography

A bit of help here. I am using Adobe camera raw to process my raw files. Should I be doing it in 8 or 16 bit? What's the difference? After Adobe camera raw, i then do other edits in Photoshop Elements 7. Thanks

Nikolai

jnrpotography wrote:

A bit of help here. I am using Adobe camera raw to process my raw files. Should I be doing it in 8 or 16 bit? What's the difference? After Adobe camera raw, i then do other edits in Photoshop Elements 7. Thanks

If you don't deal with very subtle gradients and don't print larger than, say, 8x12, I think you can safely stay with 8bit processing to save on file sizes and processing times..
BTW it doesn't matter what mode you have while you're still in ACR (on in LR, for that matter). It's only when you open it in PS/PSE as a hard copy it starts to differ...

arodney

jnrpotography wrote:

A bit of help here. I am using Adobe camera raw to process my raw files. Should I be doing it in 8 or 16 bit? What's the difference? After Adobe camera raw, i then do other edits in Photoshop Elements 7. Thanks

16-bit for highest quality:
http://www.digitalphotopro.com/gear/imaging-tech/the-bit-depth-decision.html