> of each individual color, true, and it's also 16M > colors. Also, you're not likely to get only one > color out of three.
Yes, but the 16M is just that, a mythical number that never appears in most images, the range of colours is typically more far restricted. > For most images, there will be > no visible degradation in the image using only 8 > bits/color. If you haven't tried an experiment, and > are only speaking of "theory" Ive noticed it in practice severally. Notably in shots with some very variable lighting across landscapes which contain numerous greens. Playing with the curves often results in problems when all 256 of the greens in 8 bit are used up. And as you point out - with grayscale - luminance can get blown out with too few bits, so why not chrominance. > you really need to > try an experiment for your self. Many people have > done this experiment, and that's why they say that 8 > bits/color works perfectly for most images. Yes - 8 bit does work fine for most images, but if you really want to throw an image into some editing, then relying on 8 bits is foolhardy if you can get more to work with. Remember - filmscanners work with an analogue medium that contains far more information than 16/8 bits can capture - now why not only use 4 bits? or 6/7? 8 Bits is no magic number - just as the 16 Million colours is a myth - in the sense that no digital image contains all 256*256*256 possibilities. Heyy - it might contain 3400*120*44 ... Its well documented in the 3D community that having 24 bit colour internally in 3D processing engines can result in banding in certain scenes, and thats why Nvidia and ATI have developed 32 bit engines, and more. I think that scanning to capture all the nuances and working from there is the sensible way. bert -- Linux - reaches the parts that other beers fail to reach. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
