On Fri, 2005-07-22 at 15:13, Rob Studdert wrote: > On 22 Jul 2005 at 16:11, Joaquim Carvalho wrote: > > > (Regardless of the raw vs jpg discussion) using 8 bits formats to store > > photographs is just plain stupid. > > Why the hell is anyone happy with a 0-255 dynamic range when modern CCDs > > do a lot better (0-4095), film does a lot better and our eyes do a lot > > better? > > This reverence for the holly 8 bits byte has been pushed too far. > > Simply because neither your video adaptor or any current printer can deal > with > image files of greater than 8 bits/colour channel.
Yes but those are bad excuses: - there are 12 bits DVI screens - for printing the conversion from 8 bits RGB to 8 bits CMYK is worse than from 12 bits RGB - on both 8 bit screens and printers the software could do dithering to show more than 256 levels per channel - in a few years time these limitations will probably change but people will be stuck with their 8 bits old pictures
