you know when you render to disc..and you saving the file.. it gives you an option of bits per pixel..esp if yous ave as tiff file.. 24/48 and 96 bits per pixel.. does that make a difference to the render? What's the best option? And I suspect makes the render longer?

cced to daz 

I suspect it has to do with the quality of the image.

Your best quality is 96 bit and lowest would be 24 with 48 in the middle quality wise. Is this a proof image? Then go 96. If for the net then 24 would be just fine.

Still waiting on those strawberries!

Mike

I'm probably wrong on this.

 I understand that 24 bit-plane pixels can produce 16 million different colors.  The average human eye can discern a little over 10 million colors.  One would conclude that 24 bit is just fine since 24 bit plane can produce more color differences than a person can perceive.

What the additional bits per pixel can give you is more control in post production because there is more detailed information available on each pixel to manipulate, such as in processing hdri photo images.  I think this additional information is kind of like a photo shot in RAW can be massaged in post production to bring out detail that was not readily visible on the original image. 

Another thing the additional information per pixel gives you the ability to adjust color without creating color banding.

I'm not sure where all this would apply in a rendered image. 

Someone please set me straight if I'm off base on this.

Sort of like the difference between asa 400 and kodachrome 25.  Keep it simple skil, and don't clutter up her head while she is working on the strawberries! !

You'd have to go some to clutter up Rosie's head. She is one of the smartest people I know.

As skiwillgee stated, getting rid of color banding is the best thing for going 48 or 96 bit, but with my experience, it was only worth it if I was going to print something. If the image is just going to be shown on the web well, the web is only 24-bit (per regular jpg's), so even if you had a 96-bit render, it would still be taken down to 24-bit for uploading and viewing.

BUT...what I don't know is...would one see a difference in color banding in a scene rendered out just 24-bit versus one rendered out at 96-bit and then reduced down by whatever image program you are using?

Might depend on the 2D image program.

Hmmm....Bryce always gets my question machine going....;o)

AS

"BUT...what I don't know is...would one see a difference in color banding in a scene rendered out just 24-bit versus one rendered out at 96-bit and then reduced down by whatever image program you are using?"

I thought banding was a result of low lines per inch on the printer; not a child of bit depth. With the number of Epson printers I've gone through I have a well grounded bit of experience with banding. It usually could only be eliminated by printing at the highest resolution.

Mike

 ArtByMiva

Banding can be visible on a monitor screen on some occasions, especially when gradual color gradients are involved. 

 Bryster

Yes she is as smart as she is pretty

A.S.

Saving rendered images to jpg opens the door for banding.  I always save as tff.  I think down converting to 24 bit would be a crap shoot also.  I would depend on the algorithm used doing the conversions. BTW, congrats. 

I have been saving as tiff for years and rendering to disk at 300dpi and still got banding. The only time I use jpeg is for posting online or email.

Mike

Yeah, usually, most of the time we all see "banding" when looking at gradients (skies)

Sure, color banding CAN be "created" (seen) even when printing high quality images, (with no visable banding), IF the printer is printing at a low print quality setting. But, this is a hit and miss aspect as it is dependant on the image, the printer, the settings, etc. So yeah, good/great images coupled with a "fine" printer setting might not SOLVE an already existing visual banding problem but it will normally keep it from happening.

Random note #1 - An OLD solution to minmize the effect of banding in an image was to add noise to the image (or the area). It does basically work, although obviously you ARE adding noise, so you would need to balance out what looks better to what you want it to look like.

Random Note #2 - TIFFS...I dropped almost all all tiff usage and have converted all my tiffs on my harddrive to PNG. A PNG is as good as a TIF but can have smaller filesizes, sometimes, a MUCH smaller filesize, especially in images with fewer colors and greyscale images. And, PNG's do support 48-bit and 96-bit color depths.

As I have over 700 bryce projects and (had) way over 1,000 tiffs on my harddrive, I've saved a LOT of space converting to PNG. *In my case, I have created TONS of 48-bit grayscale images to be used in Bryce to drive Terrains and those benefit very well in smaller files sizes as being png's instead of tiff's.

AS

Attached Link: FineArt Impressions

*I've used the attached printer when he was located in North Carolina.  He said always add noise when printing.  He was speaking of giclee.  See his "history" on the link for his credentials

Yup. ;o)
Especially if printing to glossy paper. Printing to a textured paper (canvas) might do the trick without noise but still, can't hurt.

I started using noise near the begining of my 3D work but it was just to give it more of a photographic look and to get away from the look of "perfect" 3D renders. Now, I couldn't imagine using at least some small level of noise/chaos in everything I do, even 2D paintings.

AS

Agent is right, to alleve banding add noise and a bit of various blurs, I myself quit using .tif files as well, for one file size and two if you use tif with compression al it does is add blur to the image. I myself just adjust a few things within photoshop then actually save out as a hir res .pdf file, seems that is what the digital printers are wanting nowadays, and also they only need to be sent 1/3 the size as the final product is going to be printed at, apparently the digital printer will interpolate and calculate the difference and adjust for it, but they require atleast 150 dpi image for decent quality, so that can cut file sizes down in a big way.

Thanks for the information. I was using tiff at 300 because the color people at the graphics companies I worked for recommended that. Will now change to jpeg at 300. What really hurts is that I might have pitched 3 perfectly good Epson printers into the trash.

Clay, can you be more specific about tiff compression and blurring, like which version? I thought there were a few of choices for the compression algorithm.

Any compression you add to a tiff, all it does is blur the pixels a bit, sometimes really noticable and sometimes not at all, it makes the file size huge due to it having to "blur" every single pixel in the image along with all the other embedded color information etc etc that the file has. I use photoshop so when you save as a tiff it asks for compression I always check "no" on that, but again I don't really use that format anymore unless the client specifically asks for it, about 98% of my clients want a .pdf file, a 300 dpi .jpg file,  a 300 dpi .png file and an editable vector file if that is applicable to the project. To be honest I rarely even send CMYK files anymore unless its old school press printing so they can seperate the plates, its all digital now baby!! LOL!! But that's kinda the short of it.

And Art, you can never go wrong by doing 300 dpi, always work larger than what's expected because you can always scale down without losing image quality, scaling up is the bugger.