Options for 16 bit processing

[broadsword]

From a previous post I've been told that processing stacked images in 8 bit (GIMP) limits quality greatly. Apart from shelling out several hundred for Photoshop, are there any other 16 bit options? I'm used now to layer-based processing, is this something that needs to be sacrificed?

thanks,

Neil

[Gonzo]

I might be wrong but doesn't Gimp 2.8 support 16 bit?

http://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.8.html

[Pete Presland]

i think they are working on a 16 bit GIMP version at the moment

this a statement from the website -

"For some industries, especially photography, 24-bit colour depths (8 bits per channel) are a real barrier to entry. Once again, it's GEGL to the rescue. Work on integrating GEGL into GIMP began after 2.4 was released, and will span across several stable releases. This work will be completed in GIMP 3.0, which will have full support for high bit depths. If you need such support now and can't wait, cinepaint and krita support 16 bits per channel now.

It should be noted that for publishing to the web, the current GIMP release is good enough."

[Pete Presland]

I might be wrong but doesn't Gimp 2.8 support 16 bit?

http://www.gimp.org/...s/gimp-2.8.html

certainly looks like it, downloading as we speak

[laser_jock99]

The various releases of Corel Paint Shop Pro have some 16 bit support and later versions also open most RAW files.

The 16 bit functionality seems a bit random though- curves works, histogram adjust dosen't but histogram stretch does........?

[broadsword]

I thought 16 bit was still in development, let me know how you get on with it.....

[x6gas]

You might try PhotoPlus X4 - most of it runs in 16-bit depths (aside from some of filters like the in-built noise reduction filter - but you can convert to 8-bit at the end and run those if you need to. Similar features to PS, but some things do work a little differently. Of course, it's not as good as PS, but it's only a tenner - http://www.serif.com/sale/

[broadsword]

You might try PhotoPlus X4 - most of it runs in 16-bit depths (aside from some of filters like the in-built noise reduction filter - but you can convert to 8-bit at the end and run those if you need to. Similar features to PS, but some things do work a little differently. Of course, it's not as good as PS, but it's only a tenner - http://www.serif.com/sale/

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look. Does it offer layers-based processing, out of interest?

[broadsword]

certainly looks like it, downloading as we speak

How did you get on with this, did it come out as 16 bit?

[russellhq]

I'm pretty sure the release version of GIMP doesn't support 16 bit processing, you need to download and build your own development version to get it to work

[x6gas]

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look. Does it offer layers-based processing, out of interest?

Yes, it's a layers based programme very, very similar to PS. You can download a "starter" version for free if you want to take a quick look at the basic workspace.

Do be warned, though, that Serif have a hard won reputation for overly aggressive marketing. I have found that so long as you are clear, they leave you alone but be very careful to opt out of any and all marketing...