Bit Depth

If your digital camera can record raw files, you can take advantage of higher bit depths when you edit your images. Bit depth refers to the number of colours that can be displayed by a digital device. The higher the bit depth, the more colours used in the image and, consequently, the larger the file size.

JPEG images are always recorded with 8-bit depth. This means the files can record 256 (28) levels of red, green and blue. Cameras that support raw file capture offer higher bit depths, usually ranging from 12 to16 bits. A 12-bit image file can record 4096 levels of each of the three colour channels, while a 16-bit image file can cover 65,536 discrete levels of red, green and blue information.

The main reason bit depth is important to digital photographers is that images with higher bit depth give you so much more data to work with when the image is edited than 8-bit JPEGs. Consequently, you can make a wider range of adjustments without compromising picture quality. If you don’t plan to edit your digital photos and print them to poster size, the ability to work with high-bit images is irrelevant; you might just as well stick with JPEG files.
This is an excerpt from Mastering Digital Photography Pocket Guide 2nd Edition.
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