8-bit vs. 16-bit
 

Hey guys,

I'm about to start texturing the pirate ship and I was messing around with PS's settings. Does anyone know what the difference is between 8-bit and 16-bit images (besides the size difference)? What are the pros and cons of each?

-Jr.Who
:beer:

16 bit images can hold more colours per channel than 8 bit (think its 256 levels compared to 64K levels on 16 bit), that gives them better quality when displaying lots of subtle colours in the range, but they take up more space on the HDD.

So, which would you prefer?

I personally always choose 16 bit.

16 bit, but if your struggling for RAM at render time and can get away with it use 8.

if you cant sacrifice 16 bit / 2d bit e.g. displacements etc then you can convert your massive textures to block ordered textures. Google it :)

OK, I'll be going with 16-bit. Only problem is that it takes forever to save the file. I'll be doing some comparison pics later, if I remember. ;)

How big you making the maps for it to take ages?

I figured I'd try 4096 x 4096 to see the difference on the dimensions too.

You just can add more detial to it.

I pretty much dont go over 2k for a map (although I would use multiple maps head, body etc)

If your going so high with the maps you might run into memory probs at render time (or just waiting ages!)

OK, switching back to 8-bits! Got sick of waiting over 30 seconds to save.

To save the image! Wow, think it takes about 5 seconds to save on mine, you not trying to save on some funkey settings, whats the file size?

The PSD was around 130 MB. Remember that my computer's old. ;)

hehe! No probs.

Tbh I would suggest that you try to get as much out of what youve got before going onto other stuff.

Just more of a pain for data handeling and manipulation, start off small and work up, theres no advantage jumping the gun, basics are the way forward!