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I want to create a new website mock-up project in the newest Photoshop CC 2017 version, but since the welcome interface changed, I don't remember the colour mode settings from before. First I choose RGB colour mode of course, but then I can set as well 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit colours, but I am not sure which one to pick up for standard website PSD ??
Can someone explain what those 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit colours are for and when to choose 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit colour modes ??
Thank you for help.
Use 8-bit.
You could start out in 16-bit if you are doing heavy editing to photographic images, and convert to 8-bit when you're done.
8-bit files have 256 levels (shades of color) per channel, whereas 16-bit has 65,536 levels, which gives you editing headroom.
32-bit is used for creating HDR (High Dynamic Range) images.
For more information, take a look at this article: What is a digital image?
Scroll down to Image modes, channels and bit depth
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Use 8-bit.
You could start out in 16-bit if you are doing heavy editing to photographic images, and convert to 8-bit when you're done.
8-bit files have 256 levels (shades of color) per channel, whereas 16-bit has 65,536 levels, which gives you editing headroom.
32-bit is used for creating HDR (High Dynamic Range) images.
For more information, take a look at this article: What is a digital image?
Scroll down to Image modes, channels and bit depth
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Flipping love clear, succinct answers. Thank you for this...
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which one to use for creating images to print?
thx
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8-bit is normally used for printing, although some printer drivers allow printing 16-bit files. I have no experience with 16-bit printing, but a quick internet search seems to indicate that it doesn't offer any advantage over 8-bit.
The important thing is that you start out in 16-bit, and then convert (a copy) to 8-bit for printing when you have finished editing.
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16 bits is for editing. Rounding errors accumulate less when doing corrections. The problem here are repeated adjustments that need more accuracy. For printing, 8 bits is more then enough. Even 6 bits would produce quite the same result, except when printing really high quality prints on very special paper with very advanced printers.