Well, Baseline TIFF (per spec ver. 6.0) is 8 bits per color channel, 24 bits for RGB, and 8 bits for grayscale. 16-bit per color channel TIFFs are supported in Photoshop, and some other programs, but aren't universally transferrable yet. And of course JPEG only supports 8 bit color, and any conversion to JPEG is gonna lose that info.
Also, you need Photoshop 8 (CS) to view the TIFF in anything but 8 bit mode. Level adjustments become tricky when you can only see 8 bits of color info but are trying to adjust 16 bits worth. i.e. Problematic not just tricky. So unless you have the new Photoshop, then it's a moot issue. Also, a 48-bit color TIFF (16 bits per channel) is obviously more colors than your monitor can display at 32-bit color depth. Again, problematic for usability. The rule of thumb is, scan it in 16-bit, adjust it there, and if your final goal is portability, you simply have to convert to 8 bit. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Herb Chong" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 5:15 PM Subject: Re: Scanning Question > TIFF most definitely supports 16-bit grayscale. > > Herb.... > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeff Jonsson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 3:51 PM > Subject: RE: Scanning Question > > > > Of course TIFF only supports 8-bit grayscale, so if > > you're scanning with TIFF files as your format of choice for the > > end-result file, I wouldn't scan in RGB. You'll end up with a file > > that's more than 3 times as large, and won't really gain any tonality > > you won't get with a 16, or even 12 bit grayscale image. > >
