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Participant
March 7, 2020
Answered

How to change default bit depth

  • March 7, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 4907 views

A while back I was messing with some settings in photoshop and must have accidently done something wrong.  Whenever I create a new file it automatically creates it in 16 bit depth, and I never think about it until I either go to use filter gallery or transfer my sketches to illustrator to refine and I cannot import it as layers. (figured this one out the hard way lol)  

For the life of me I cannot figure out where the setting is to change the default back to 8 bit, where can I change that?  Thank you!

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    Correct answer davescm

    In File > New

    Dave

     

    2 replies

    davescm
    Community Expert
    davescmCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2020

    In File > New

    Dave

     

    Participant
    April 21, 2022

    Hi Dave,

     

    This works great if you want to change it every time you create a new file, but something has changed recently that defaults mine to 8bit. I have to change my screenshots to at least 16 or the artwork will not show in the canvas, but you can see it clearly in the layer view.

    There's no place to set this to 16 bit by default so you don't have to set this every time? I've been doing screenshots for UI development for years by screensgrabs, copying and pasting into PS and manipulating there.

     

    I looked through all the settings and can't find something obvious here to set this to 16-bit by default.

     

    Here's an example of the canvas vs layer view in 8-bit mode. Switching it to 16-bit fixes it.

     

    After

     

     

    davescm
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 21, 2022

    Two things

    The New Layer settings should be sticky so you can use the previous settings and amend the size for the next.

     

    The problem you show with 8 bit docs not displaying correctly, on some systems, should be resolved in v23.3.1 released today.

     

    Dave

    Derek Cross
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2020

    Did you change it in RAW?

    Participant
    March 7, 2020

    Honestly I am NOT sure - I did open the "camera raw" setting under edit >preference> camera raw but didnt see a setting there unless I missed something. (and I may have)  I did this quite a while ago and honestly forget exactly where I changed it at,  I usually end up manually changing it back when i am in photoshop and remember it (like filter gallery not working) or reopen and save the file properly when trying to import layers to photoshop.