[filmscanners] RE: 8 bit versus 16

["LAURIE SOLOMON" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

On the face of it, this does seem to be another silly debate.  In his
responses Austin covered his ass bymaking of point of sayin 16-bit is not
necessary in most color scans as contrasted to all, which means that nay
exception you bring up will be considered by his as an exception and not the
rule.  You on the other hand seem to have focused in on the needs of your
own personal work flow and needs and not a general workflow or needs and
come off as having an agenda of convincing others that your workflow is the
only good and acceptible one for everyone.

If your work flow works for you and is something that requires you to employ
16-bit scans as you perceive it, then you have to satisfy yourself and
should stick to 16-bit scans.  If others think that 8-bit suffices for their
work than they should use that.  Neither has any need to convince the other
that what they are doing is justified much less the best and only proper way
to accomplish the goals at hand for each.

Sometimes we become fanatical over trivial minutia which is not significant
to most and can not be dscerned by most even when they perform the empirical
experiments suggested.  Thus, for them this discussion becomes of as much
practical relevance to their needs and work as knowing the number of angles
that can fit on the head of a pin.  If there is a key practical significance
to doing 16-bit color scans, it is to generate as complete a quasi-raw data
file as is currently possible from a scan for purposes of archiving as a
master file off of which specific working files will be generated both now
and in the future.  By doing a 16-bit scan of a color image, you capture as
much data as is now possible which may be of potential use in the future as
the software and hardware changes and approves to accomodate the use of the
additional data in a 16-bit file.  However, in many cases, the need and
usefulness of a refined and tonally enhanced, extended 16-bit image file as
a working file that one is going to produce finished products from is of
little practical use given today's software and hardware.

If you or anyone thinks they see a difference in the final product when
producing their work by using 16-bit as opposed to 8-bit scans, then by all
means they should use 16-bit scans and not worry about what anyone else
thinks or says should be done.  If 8-bit is good enough for them, then they
should follow theirown light and disregard the opinions of those that push
for 16-bit scans as the gospel.

-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Robert Logan
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 3:58 AM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: 8 bit versus 16


Austin Franklin wrote:
> It really depends on if you are talking color or B&W.  For B&W, there is
no
> question, you need to use 16 bits for doing all but a minimum tonal curve
> adjustment, but for color, for most applications you won't see any
> difference using 8 bit data or 16 bit data.

Have to agree on the B&W front - 16 bit is essential -
after scanning in a roll of old FP from some years ago
and I forgot to set to 16 bit - I got a shock when
doing curves - boom - highlights would just explode :)

As for 16 bit, I cant agree. If you take a picture of
a heavily red scene - autumnal sunsets and leaves etc
are coming up for example, then your film is going to
be using a much larger range of 'reds' than 8 bits
can accomodate. Dithering with other colours will occur
with the 8 bit scan to make up the difference in the
digital scan vs the analogue film. Once you start
messing with the curves on this, it will make matters
worse. Having 16 bits of red to work with will leave
much broader scope for manouvering in curves. Its
analogous to the black and white issue above.

8 bits is only 256 possible reds/greens/blues. Theres
no way I would rely on this for editing, although the
final destination (print) might make no use of all that
info.

--
Linux - reaches the parts that other beers fail to reach.

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