Digital Light & Color

Another Layout question.

If I have a 48 bit colour image active, and I do File>New Image and use the Colour Picker to identify a colour, the resulting solid colour image is 48 bit. Seems logical.

If I have a few images open and one active (all 48 bit colour) then open the Layout Transform to generate a panelled image, and use the Colour Picker to choose a solid colour background (border) as well as solid colour panels, if the colours are black and white, the result is an 8 bit image, and if I choose a different solid colour than black (say blue), the result is a 24 bit image.

I'm wondering why the B and W image is 8 bit (rather than 16 bit or 48 bit) and the coloured image is 24 bit (rather than 48 bit)??

I, initially, generated a panelled image that had conventional images for the panel and background (border) that I wanted to try a few different images as well as a solid colour for the border, to see which matched best with the image panels. Because the border image was close in colours and values to the panels, rather than trying to create a mask for the border, I decided to re-do the Layout, and make the border colour - white, while the panel colour - black. It was my intention to convert the resultant image into an 8 bit B and W to be used as the mask for experimentation in the Composite Transform, but to my surprise, it was already 8 bit right out of the Layout Transform. Out of curiosity I tried the same thing, but replaced the black with a blue colour. It turned out as 24 bit.

Just curious,

Marv

Here is how it is supposed to work:

1) If you have no images in the layout, the image is 8-bit gray or 24-bit color, depending on whether the background and all the panels are gray or at least one is color.

3) If you have 8-bit gray or 24-bit color images, they act like gray or color background colors as far as determining the result image type.

2) If the background or any of the panels contain a 16-bit gray or 48-bit color image, the result image is 16-bit gray or 48-bit color if at least one of the images is 48-bit color.

Basically the layout result is the minimal image type that can accommodate all the input colors and images.

The color picker always produces 24-bit color samples. In the case of File New, the initial image type is the same as the input image, if any.

Thanks very much Jonathan.