RGB 8-bit vs 16-bit

How does bit depth affect the reproduction of the output image?

Below comparisons were performed with GRACoL2006_Coated1. 8-bit (per channel) and 16-bit (per channel) tiff files were output with PatchTool. RGB values were then extracted from the tiff files, read back and compared with the reference data.



sRGB



Adobe RGB

  

ProPhoto

Summary

Some color patches in GRACoL2006_Coated1 are out of sRGB color space, they are clipped and hence resulting in high dE error.





8-Bit Depth per Channel
            Average  90th %    95th %  
sRGB         1.27     0.72      9.47         
Adobe RGB    0.35     0.52      0.59  
ProPhoto RGB 0.44     0.73      0.88 

16-Bit Depth per Channel
            Average  90th %    95th %  
sRGB         1.04     0.38      9.45         
Adobe RGB    0.04     0.01      0.01
ProPhoto RGB 0.00     0.01      0.01