8-bit vs. 12-bit color

[TunafishJoe]

I just purchased a Minolta DiMAGE s414 from ebay and I read that the images are taken using 12-bit color instead of the standard 8.

First off am I correct or am I horribly wrong. And if I'm correct what are the noticable differences between color numbers? ie file size, image quality, compatability. Thanks alot...

Goolge is your friend:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...it-depth.shtml
So is Luminous-Landscape for that matter...

[PeterP]

How are you writing your images? If you are writing JPG to your CF card you are saving them as 8bit by default.

If you are doing RAW then you have the other bits to work with in PS if you have a version of PS(like PS CS) that can handle the higher bit images.

[TunafishJoe]

I am writing them as Super Fine Jpeg's. So Jpeg's can only be saved as 8-bits?

[PeterP]

Yes, jpg's are 8-bit/color ie: 24bit files. Your camera sensor is outputing at 12bit/color or 36bit images.
Not many file formats can handle 12bit or 16bit(really expensive MF camera)/channel color. Raw and PSD(Photoshop native) can, not sure about TIFF, they tend to be huge and I stay away from them.

I see that ACDsee now has a power plugin that lets it view raw, high bit formats.

[TunafishJoe]

Thanks Kalipso and thanks Google. But if I'm hearing PeterP right, Jpeg's can only be saved as 8-bit anyways. And I'm not about to wait 45 seconds between shots to save them as uncompressed Tiffs. Thanks for the info.

[Kenny_Leong]

I thought that jpgs are 24 bit colour. That is, each pixel can be set to one out of 2^24 colours.... a palette of around 16 million colours. While gif format has a palette of 256 colours.

[PeterP]

Yes, you are correct, a jpg is a 24bit color image, made up of 3 * 8 bit channels. Hence the 8bit/channel designation

Originally Posted by Kenny_Leong

[b]jpgs are 24 bit colour. That is, each pixel can be set to one out of 2^24 colours.... a palette of around 16 million colours. While gif format has a palette of 256 colours.

[/quote]