Urgent Question to Display 12 bit depth monochrome imaging

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 18:21:00 -0800, Asker.DC wrote:

I acquired a multi-frame TIF formatted image by using a 12 bit depth
monochrome CCD and its supporting software.

The save instruction in the menu of the software has two optionsne
is to save as 8-bit .TIF file, and the other is to save as 16-bit .TIF
file. In order to utilize full information of the 12 bit depth image,
I've to choose to save as 16-bit .TIF file.

But when I use what ever Phptoshop or ACDC to disply it, it turns out
to be a black square without any information.

Any one can help me?

You generally want your image to be 12 (or 16) bits for processing, and
8 bits for final display. So you save your raw data at the highest bit
depth possible. This requires, of course, that your processing software
can handle the data. ACDSee is a simple viewer- I wouldn't worry about
using it on such data. Photoshop (since V6) can read 16-bit TIFF files.
But your display device is only 8-bits, so the data needs to be
stretched sometimes in order to be visible. In Photoshop, when
displaying the histogram, you should see that your image has data
present. You need (at a minimum) to set the dark and light points to map
it into your display space. You may also want to use the Curves
function, or adjust the gamma, to optimize the transfer function.

When you are done processing, save the image at full bit depth in case
you want to do further processing. But also save it in a standard 8-bit
format (TIFF or JPEG) for local viewing in ACDSee or for posting on the
web.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

I acquired a multi-frame TIF formatted image by using a 12 bit depth
monochrome CCD and its supporting software.

The save instruction in the menu of the software has two optionsne
is to save as 8-bit .TIF file, and the other is to save as 16-bit .TIF
file. In order to utilize full information of the 12 bit depth image,
I've to choose to save as 16-bit .TIF file.

But when I use what ever Phptoshop or ACDC to disply it, it turns out
to be a black square without any information.

Any one can help me?

thank you!