25
votes
Accepted
RAW files store 3 colors per pixel, or only one?
Raw files don't really store any colors per pixel. They only store a single brightness value per pixel.
It is true that with a Bayer mask over each pixel the light is filtered with either a Red, Green,...
- 176k
10
votes
Accepted
What does a fractional colour bit depth mean?
Snapsort is using DxOMark for its sensor data, and DxOMark explain here what each of their scores mean. Specifically for Color Depth, they say:
Maximum color sensitivity reports, in bits, the ...
- 22.2k
8
votes
Accepted
Pseudo high-bit grayscale - does this idea already exist?
Yes, it exists and it is called pseudo-gray.
- 22k
7
votes
How to edit more than 8 bits (10, 16 bits) of color in GIMP?
You can use the 0..100 scale:
This is a percentage with one decimal digit, so in high precision modes, it is mapped to 1000 different values, and therefore about 10 bits.
To edit in 16-bit set the ...
- 22k
6
votes
Accepted
Photoshop Image mode and bit depth
When you work in 16 bits mode, the pixel data have 16 bits/channel, thus 65536 shades per channel.
Your display has 8 or 10 bits/channel, thus 256 or 1024 shades per channel.
The way you convert ...
- 827
6
votes
RAW files store 3 colors per pixel, or only one?
Ken is right in the claim you quote — sort of. It is correct that digital cameras today (with the exception of those with Sigma's Foveon sensors) work by using a Bayer matrix, and sensor resolution is ...
- 144k
6
votes
Accepted
Why does an X megapixel sensor produce X MB of data (in image files)?
To start with, the sensor doesn't output any color. Each pixel only records a single value: how much light struck the sensor. The number of bits determines how fine the steps between each brightness ...
- 176k
5
votes
Is there a technical reason to go from RAW to an 8 bit TIFF?
The reasons why 8 bit TIFF is acceptable are:
raw files are typically linear and most used profiles (including AdobeRGB, sRGB, ProPhoto and whatnot) use gamma-encoding. Read more about it here. 8 bit ...
- 5,553
5
votes
Why does an X megapixel sensor produce X MB of data (in image files)?
Nearly all image file formats worth speaking of are compressed in some way. The mechanism for doing this varies depending on the file format you're using - but the files which you see will have been ...
- 2,347
5
votes
Accepted
What is difference between 8bit RGB and 16bit RGB?
The number of bits tells how many values are possible per color component. This specifies bit-depth as BPC (bits-per-component) which is what Photoshop uses. Windows on the other hand uses BPP (bits-...
- 103k
5
votes
Accepted
Does photoshop really use 15 bit?
Yes, internally Photoshop converts 16 bit tiffs to 15 bits where 0:32768 is the same range as 0:255 in 8 bits.
Adobe's Chris Cox confirms it here:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/792212
And I have ...
- 1,217
5
votes
Pseudo high-bit grayscale - does this idea already exist?
You have already pointed out the exact reason this wouldn't be worth the effort of implementing.
The slight tint shouldn't be noticeable.
The minute differences in brightness wouldn't be ...
- 3,211
5
votes
RAW to TIFF or PSD 16bit loses color depth
The 16-bits used to record raw data and the 16-bits (per color channel) used to record a demosaiced and gamma corrected TIFF or PSD are not used to represent the same exact thing in the same exact way....
- 176k
5
votes
Accepted
Image File Size Question
Your naive computation works on naive image formats (early BMP, TGA).
However, most popular image formats use some form of compression, which can be lossless or lossy, and in both cases, the achieved ...
- 22k
4
votes
Accepted
Why does Photoshop Curves in 16 bit color depth still use tonal range 0 - 255?
16-bit is only used for internal calculations. What you actually see on your monitor is in 8-bit. Since an 8-bit monitor can only display 256 levels (0-255) and is unable to display the difference ...
- 176k
4
votes
Image File Size Question
The reason is simple. The images are in PNG format, which implies lossless compression (like zip) of the data. Your calculations will be true if you store the image ...
- 12.5k
3
votes
Lossy archival compression for 16-bit TIF images
May I suggest HEIF?
HEIF is the replacement for both JPEG and JPEG2000. It is effectively a single H.265 frame.
Don't store single-frame H.265 movies! Instead, use the proper file format that has ...
- 6,855
3
votes
What is difference between 8bit RGB and 16bit RGB?
8bit RGB means that you have 8 bits to represent each of the colour channels (Red, Green, and Blue). 8 bits can encode 256 different states, so you can have 256 different shades of each of the three ...
- 7,209
3
votes
Reconciling gain (e/ADU), full well capacity and ADC bit depth
The well depth is a property of the sensor.
In your example, the incident photons are converted into electrons with a ratio corresponding to the quantum efficiency and when the pixel has accumulated ...
3
votes
Is my monitor inhibiting my post processing?
Without a properly calibrated monitor with wide color-space coverage you are basically operating blindly, so for sure you need a better monitor but its not necessarily the resolution.
Start by looked ...
- 103k
3
votes
Is there a list of camera bitdepths?
DXOMARK lists bit depth for many cameras (use the search feature) along with lots of other interesting sensor information in the measurements section. You can also do a side by side comparison of up ...
- 3,114
2
votes
RAW files store 3 colors per pixel, or only one?
It is all true, but the interpretation can be stretched.
That specific raw color pattern is called a Bayer pattern.
Yes, raw is one color per pixel, and that one pixel is (typically) 12 bits. So ...
- 12.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Problems with HDR regarding bit depth and file type
You are probably missing some points.
HDR first of all is a concept, having more dynamic range.
Second, is about the ammount of information. A real HDRI file has a floating point information, that ...
- 25.4k
2
votes
Why does an X megapixel sensor produce X MB of data (in image files)?
Nop, your initial math is incomplete. Let me explain the math of uncompressed files.
1 Mpx square photo. Ok.
8 bits = 1 byte. Ok.
If the image were only grayscale yeap, the image would measure ...
- 25.4k
2
votes
Why does an X megapixel sensor produce X MB of data (in image files)?
Sensors are typically 12 bits of raw data per pixel, which is 1.5 bytes per pixel. (Some offer 14 bits, 1.75 bytes per pixel.) However, the data is typically compressed smaller in the file, which is ...
- 12.9k
2
votes
What is difference between 8bit RGB and 16bit RGB?
Two important things that the other answers seem to be missing:
The 14-bit values in a raw file are monochromatic luminance values for each sensel (pixel well) on the sensor. These values that ...
- 176k
2
votes
What is difference between 8bit RGB and 16bit RGB?
The basic idea is what I posted on another question:
What's the point of capturing 14 bit images and editing on 8 bit monitors?
But here are the bad news. If you copy and paste an 8 bit image ...
- 25.4k
2
votes
Accepted
Can I use 10bit effectively today and if yes how?
The direct effect of using more bits to represent colors is "just" to have a larger range of colors. It's the same as having three types of color receptors in our eyes is for "just" being able to ...
- 27.1k
2
votes
8bit monitor theoretical contrast
DEFINITIONS:
CONTRAST: At the most basic, contrast is a defined relationship between two stimuli. But WHAT relationship and HOW derived is a subject that can take a couple chapters in a textbook to ...
- 582
2
votes
8bit monitor theoretical contrast
The contrast between the brightest and the second darkest shade in a 8-bit monitor can be as high as you want it to be, depending on your personal configuration and the intended color space.
However, ...
- 5,069
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible