8 bit vs. 16 bit vs. 32 bit?

>How do I google?

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/16-bit/

>But I don't want to read all of this...

Then you don't want to learn.

>>278613
were you working in 256 colors ? wtf man

>>278734
8-bit editing is not the same as Indexed / 256 colors.

"8 bit" in this context means eight bits PER CHANNEL.
You really don't need anything higher than that unless you work with medical photography or some weird serious shit. Then again it's beneficial to work in 16 bits but downgrade to 8bits as the last action (nothing really supports 16 bit images, TIFF and JPEG mostly) because you don't lose important details

32 bits per channel is danger zone. Consider a 32-bit RGB image with some transparency in there. To render ONE pixel you need 16 bytes. Do the math and think if you really need that much overhead. In a typical 8b/cRGB image one pixel is 4 bytes.

I would just add that 16 and 32 bit are very usefull if working with 3D graphics or video editing as 16 and 32 bit store more information about lighting then 8 bit and give you greater control when doing FX or balancing colors/lights. But obviously that's only something to consider when generating or photographics in that kind of depth. There is no reason to convert an 8-bit image to 16 or 32 as that makes no difference except increase file size and there is no reason to work with overly high bit depth in photoshop as you will always just "eyeball" any color you use. It can help a bit with gradients but the the difference will be impossible to detect unless you start balancing values (which is mostly pointless when working with stuff like Logos, designs, layouts, mockups...)

>>278627
Thank you. I'm not OP, but that was an AMAZING read.

>>278613
http://2bit.niles.xyz

Set the mode to "bits per color per pixel" and dick around. After 6 or so bits the difference becomes hard to see