PS saves my 14 bit as 8?

[Ping279]

I just noticed today in bridge under the metadata that after editing a picture in photoshop the bit depth changes to 8. I'm shooting with the d300 set at 14 bit raw uncompressed. Bridge however shows the originals to be at 16 bit. Why does ps not keep the data?

 

[Chris101]

Look in the Image > Mode menu and select the bit depth you want.

 

[Philippe Roger]

JPEGs are always 8-bit, unless using the JPEG 2000 format (which hardly anybody uses...).

 

[Ping279]

JPEGs are always 8-bit, unless using the JPEG 2000 format (which hardly anybody uses...).

All my files are saved as psd's. Maybe my photoshop's settings are set to save automatically at 8 bits for psds?

 

[Ping279]

Look in the Image > Mode menu and select the bit depth you want.

I am very dumb haha. I knew that just wasn't thinking about it. But if I have already saved a PSD as 8 bit is it too late to reopen it and save it as 16? Is the information already lost?

 

[kays]

You could always re-convert the raw image to 16 bit (Adobe uses just 8 and 16 bit - the 12 and 14 fall in under 16 bit).

You COULD re-open and convert PSD back to 16 - but unless you plan to re-torture the pixels, there will be no advantage - the data is gone.

The JPEG will be 8 bit. Also be aware that, JPEGs are compressed using a lossy compression - that is once saved as JPEG, additional data, over and above the 16-8 bit conversion, has occured. Each time one opens and resaves a JPEG, more loss occurs. That is why most interim work is saved as .psd or .tiff - nothing is lost on subsequent open-save cycles.

 

[Chris101]

... I knew that just wasn't thinking about it. But if I have already saved a PSD as 8 bit is it too late to reopen it and save it as 16? Is the information already lost?

'Fraid so. You can resave as 16 bit, but it will just interpolate the data, not restore what was lost.

 

[sajko]

Are you using ACR (adobe camera raw) for Raw? You should check settings in ACR (it's where color profile is set), so that you don't have 8bit output set inthere.

 

[Ping279]

Are you using ACR (adobe camera raw) for Raw? You should check settings in ACR (it's where color profile is set), so that you don't have 8bit output set inthere.

Yes i am using acr. I will check it out. Thanks for the help!