Sharpen Before or After Converting to 8 bit?
8 bit JPG, 16 bit RAW
Before I offer any direction, let me explain for those of you who are not yet aware, it won't benefit you to read further unless you already shoot, or will consider shooting in the RAW format within your camera settings.
When Sharpening Matters
It's not as if when you sharpen your photo that it counts huge, but it does matter to some degree. You can sharpen in either mode, 8 bit or 16 bit. The mode you use to sharpen in matters. The information that your sensor gathers is higher in 16 bit and less in 8 bit, so after managing your image through layer adjustments, if you don't have a routine method, I suggest you sharpen in 16 bit mode.
Here's Why
There's more information, more data and you want every bit of data you can get when working on your photos, assuming you have used all the best settings in capturing that photo. It wouldn't do you much good to underexpose a portrait photo for a client who wanted a bright gleaming shot of herself. But when you have the shot you want and need to present it online or in print in the very best possible way, 16 bit is always the correct approach. Your image then has more data to display. Now the trick is to properly expose or edit it in Lightroom or Photoshop in 16 bit because of the added data in the image file. In fact you would do all of your work, that these two programs allow you to do in 16 bit, then sharpen and then do the conversion to 8 bit, and finish your editing if you have more to do.
It's been said that this is all nonsense, that the human eye cannot detect the difference, and that may be true to a large extent. But that is not why it is advised to work within the 16 bit parameter. When the data within a given image is edited or manipulated, if you will, it is then sent to another piece of hardware which then extrapolates and interprets that data as best it can to either display on a website, or within a document, or from a printer. it is this extrapolation and interpretation by yet another device which loses to some degree, detail you are hoping to maintain for yourself or your client. And when there is any chance at all that any nuance of colors, or pixels or fine detail or gradations of these can get lost, your obvious decision is to keep all that you can. It really does make for a slight edge when considering all that can go wrong.
And remember some clients or you, might be so fussy that even this small difference can mean them buying again, or you knowing that you've done everything you can to get the best results possible.
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Does the Difference Really Matter?
It's been said that this is all nonsense, that the human eye cannot detect the difference, and that may be true to a large extent. But that is not why it is advised to work within the 16 bit parameter. When the data within a given image is edited or manipulated, if you will, it is then sent to another piece of hardware which then extrapolates and interprets that data as best it can to either display on a website, or within a document, or from a printer. it is this extrapolation and interpretation by yet another device which loses to some degree, detail you are hoping to maintain for yourself or your client. And when there is any chance at all that any nuance of colors, or pixels or fine detail or gradations of these can get lost, your obvious decision is to keep all that you can. It really does make for a slight edge when considering all that can go wrong.
And remember some clients or you, might be so fussy that even this small difference can mean them buying again, or you knowing that you've done everything you can to get the best results possible.
Nuts and Bolts
In order to explain this in a technical or engineering sense, let's take a look at why 8 bit is just not the best choice, through a mathematical example. Without going into a long explanation, 8 bit gives you over 16 millions of colors, whereas 16 bits gives you 290 trillion combinations. Ok I can hear you immediately, how is that going to show up on my printer? Well in most cases, depending on what adjustments you make it won't, but lets take an example I like to give when doing layer adjustments. Many of us like to use exposure, levels, hue and saturation adjustments and so on. So lets take the most obvious torture test. Grab a levels adjustment and push the sliders from both ends all the way to the center, to add both shadows and highlights. What is happening in an 8 bit color depth is what is called banding, areas where the gradients of the different color depths are not blending well, however in a 16 bit color depth you won't see that harsh effect.
Because I grabbed this image from a Bing images search and because I want to give credit (http://suzsplace.com/tips and tricks/8bit-vs-16bitimages.jpg) it may not be the best example as I have saved it from a very low res online. But you get the idea of what banding can do to a photo when looking at the difference between an 8 bit and a 16 bit image. So you can tell the difference is less colors, equal less smooth transition. Now you know why it can be important to utilize a RAW 16 bit format.
In working with your images while the adjustments you make may not be as dramatic, when it is saved, then sent to your printer or placed on a webpage, you want every advantage you can get. Do your best work as often as possible.
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