Firstly let me say that from info in the links posted and Stephens example of what can be done in RAW this is not a RAW v JPEG post.
Stephen will have to excuse me here but there is a need to understand a bit about 8 bit and 16 bit. Also as JPEG is 8 bit the effects of processing on that file.
From a lot of talk on DPR about the softness of images out of the D200 camera and why can't Nikon sort this. This suggests now that these comments are being made without any knowledge of the effects that would have after post processing on the final image. The link from yesterday reasoned that USM is fairly destructive and cannot be undone. All this shows I am not alone in my ignorance of digital.
I could not understand the result from my comparison yesterday, so today I have been a bit more analytical. ( You can crack up now if you want Stephen ). I viewed both images side by side at 1500% and used the colour picker to analyse individual pixel colour. This does show that as tones lighten the difference grows. To my satisfaction this proves 16 bit does retain more colour information.
I have attached 2 images that are screen shots. Firstly just an untouched 16 bit and 8 bit to show how crazy I am. In the second one I applied the same amount of sharpening as I usually do at the end of processing. This showed that now there is even greater differences between 8 bit and 16 bit.
With a new PC and my existing software I will be editing images in 16 bit TIFF.
With that done I am now going to look at best scenario, worst scenario for JPEG as that is 8 bit and my current machine can handle the files.
Don
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