Convert Raw to Tiff 8 or to Tiff 16?

[droosan]

The subject says it all.

When you shoot raw does Tiff 16 offer enough of an advantage over Tiff 8 to use? I intend to use raw in difficult lighting situations, where I am likely to have to fix exposure and white balance problems, later.

[scottbergerphoto]

If you are going to be working in PS CS, use 16bit tiff. The more data you have to work on, the better the results.
Scott

[psk4363]

I'm with Scott on this one. Some elements of enhancement in PS or some other imaging software, particularly tonal correction, can be very destructive, especially at large print sizes, so the more data in your image the more it can take an amount of degradation.

Cheers,
Barry

[theoldmoose]

If you shoot raw, you get 12-bit images. If you convert to 8-bit TIFF, you are truncating the data.

Also, editing those files in 8-bit mode leaves you with no overhead for image manipulation. It becomes too easy to introduce artifacts.

PS CS can do most everything in 16-bit mode, so that's a no-brainer. It's a bit more difficult in PS 7, but you can do basic levels, curves, and some other manipulations in 16-bit mode, before being forced to downsample to 8-bit.

If you have PS 7, and are doing raw, that is the best reason I know of to upgrade to CS.

[Jim_T]

I'd save and process as 16 bit if it came to difficult lighting situations.. (As a matter of fact I do :) ) Extracting information from underexposed areas is what 16 bit editing shines at.. The difference isn't drastic like night and day, but you definitely have more latitude.

When it comes to simply printing or viewing on your monitor, 16 bit is of no real advantage..