Hi Mike, There's no argument that 16 bit -- actually 12 bit -- has superior qualities to 8 bits. HOWEVER--I am faced with the following alternatives. 1. The conventional wisdom is that you must start with a 16 bit image. Otherwise, you will not change anything by processing in 16 bit. I have never checked this out. 2. The only way that I can get a 16 bit image is by shooting in RAW. Unfortunately, my camera does not provide three bracketed shots in RAW. I prefer getting the three bracketed shots and thus the 400% increase in dynamic range. 3. For what I do, I have found the LAB mode and Lab Curves to be the easiest and best to use. Again, I have not checked this out recently. However, as of five years ago, Lab profiles were 8 bits. Thus, for me, a 16 bit image would get reduced to 8 bits when I started to work on it. 4. My monitor is sRGB and 8 bits. 5. Printing is all 8 bits. However, I have seen a noticeable difference between the output of a 4 color offset press and an 8 color offset press even though the extra "colors" are only shades of the four colors. (Are there also shades of gray.) 6. I can't afford about $20,000 for David's equipment. Most of all I wonder if any of this makes any difference to a client. My limited experience with photographs and a few brochures a month is that I only see the difference in processing if two variants are held side by side. Just out of curiosity what are your usual retouches. It sounds like an impossible amount of work for all the images you get per week. Phil
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