16 bit better then 8 bit but why in Photoshop

 So, is 16 bits better than 8 bits?

Or do you think 8 bits is a more practical choice than 16 bits?

Well, that's a conversation to be later jumped upon.

However, I need to show you some shocking demonstrations first.

So this, my friend, is an 8 bit image.

If you go to Image - Mode, have a look, 8bits is checked.

Now, we're going to do some extreme curves in it.

Click on the Adjustment layer icon and the choose Curves.

Now, we're going to take the rightmost point down extremely.

Click on the Adjustment layer icon and the choose Curves.

Let's bring the brightness back by taking the rightmost point to the left, at the top.

So this time, set the input to 10.

A lot of these problems here and there.

Well, if we simply change the mode to 16 Bits,have a look at the magic, get ready for the magic.. Image - Mode, and then 16 bit.

Well, that turned out to be an epic fail.

That was actually Photoshop's fault at how it renders images when you zoom it out.

But if you look at it at 66.7 or even 100%,there are no artifacts.

However, if you change it back by going toImage - Mode, and then 8 Bits, see these artifacts right in there.

Let's go to Image - Mode and change it back to 16 Bits.

This example just showed you that when you're working with a lot of curves, when you're doing a lot of color manipulations or brightness manipulations, if you're working with 8 bits,

it has a way higher tendency to get artifacts and banding than 16 bits.

Now you, my friend, have the liberty to actually merge all of this.

Let's say you applied a lot of Curves.

You can actually merge all of this by selecting all of this, right, and pressing Ctrl or Command E.

Now, you can change it back to 8 bits.

And all of these will be gone by Image - Mode,and 8 Bits.

See, all of the artifacts are gone even in8 bits.

But if you had kept the Curves, it could be still there.

So, 16 Bits gives you a lot of range to play with.

When you working with 8 bits, you're just working with 256 tonal variations.

Just 256 for red, 256 for green and 256 forblue if you're working with an RGB image.

If you're working with CMYK, then 256 foreach.

Now, where did this number 256 come from?

So, 2 to the power 8, which is 2 x 2 x 2 x2 - eight times, it gives you 256.

Whereas, when you're working with 16 bit,it is 2 to the power 16 which is 65,536.

So my friend, you're playing with 65,536 tonal variations for red, the same number for green and the same number for blue.

Now the question boils down to what shouldI use at the end of the day, 8 bits or 16 bits.

Now, this also can be broken down into two parts.

What do you use when you workings in Photoshop?

And what do you use when you export the image?

You always want to have a 16 bit copy.

So, let's bring it out of the tab, right click on it, and then choose Duplicate.

In this 8 bits duplicate, you will see the artifacts.

That's just because it's not zoomed in properly.

If you zoom in, have a look, all of it is gone.

Now, we need to merge all of this.

So select all of the layers, select the Curves,hold the Ctrl or Command, select all of them, press Ctrl or Command E or you can just right click on it

Now once you have merged it, you can go toImage - Mode and 8 Bits, back again.

And then if you zoom in / zoom out, there are no artefacts.

Now you can export it, save it, do whatever you want.

File - Export - Export As, and then chooseJPEG, and you get the point.

Now, instead of all of these advantages of16 bits, there are some areas when you might have to use 8 bits, even while you're working in Photoshop.

You see, when you have 16 bits active, let's go to Image - Mode, have a look, 16 Bits is active.. some of the filters will not work.

And if you go to Filter, have a look, FilterGallery is grayed out.

So ideally, when you're working with Photoshopand doing a lot of manipulations in color, brightness and all of that, I would suggest using 16 bits.

However, when you export it, it's a whole different