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48 Bit Depth Color Images

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Peter Brand

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Mar 31, 2005, 3:48:08 PM3/31/05
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I'm using gimp 2.2.4. I need to scan in 48 bit color images. I'm using an HP
Scanjet 4570c and have the twain capture software set for maximum bit depth
(48 bit color). When I capture the image it is only 24 bit. Can gimp handle
48 bit color depth images?

-Peter
bra...@rpi.edu


Roy Schestowitz

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Mar 31, 2005, 5:50:18 PM3/31/05
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I am not sure this directly answers your question, but...

Peter Brand wrote:
> I'm using gimp 2.2.4. I need to scan in 48 bit color images. I'm using an
> HP Scanjet 4570c and have the twain capture software set for maximum bit

> depth (48 bit color). When I capture the image it is only 24 bit...

From what you wrote (or maybe the way it is phrased), it is the scanning
software that is unable to scan at 48 bit color.

> ...Can gimp


> handle 48 bit color depth images?

I don't think 1.2 can and I assume 2.2.4 can't either (I know 2.2 fairly
well, but have it installed elsewhere). What do you need such high colour
depth for if I may ask?

> -Peter
> bra...@rpi.edu

--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com

Peter J. Brand

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Mar 31, 2005, 6:45:15 PM3/31/05
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"Roy Schestowitz" <newsg...@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
news:d2husk$1ujn$1...@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...

>I am not sure this directly answers your question, but...
>
> Peter Brand wrote:
>> I'm using gimp 2.2.4. I need to scan in 48 bit color images. I'm using an
>> HP Scanjet 4570c and have the twain capture software set for maximum bit
>> depth (48 bit color). When I capture the image it is only 24 bit...
>
> From what you wrote (or maybe the way it is phrased), it is the scanning
> software that is unable to scan at 48 bit color.
>

Both scanner and capture software are 48 bit and set for that.
Unfortunately, the scanned image is only 24 bit in gimp. I'm not sure if
it's a communication issue (between the scanner software and gimp) or if
gimp can only handle 24 bit depth images. I have not been able to get any
image software it capture a 48 bit depth image yet - I was hopeful that gimp
would be my answer. Why I want this is answered below.

>> ...Can gimp
>> handle 48 bit color depth images?
>
> I don't think 1.2 can and I assume 2.2.4 can't either (I know 2.2 fairly
> well, but have it installed elsewhere). What do you need such high colour
> depth for if I may ask?
>

I am scanning a special type of film used for radiation measurement
(gafchromic film made by ISP Corp.
http://www.ispcorp.com/products/dosimetry/index.html). The film's response
can best be seen in the data from the red channel. With 48 bit color depth I
get 16 bits of data in the red channel (blue and green too but they are not
used). With only 24 bit I only get 8 bits in each channel (254 levels),
which is not enough resolution.

Roy Schestowitz

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Mar 31, 2005, 7:44:20 PM3/31/05
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Peter J. Brand wrote:

> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsg...@schestowitz.com> wrote in message
> news:d2husk$1ujn$1...@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk...
>>I am not sure this directly answers your question, but...
>>
>> Peter Brand wrote:
>>> I'm using gimp 2.2.4. I need to scan in 48 bit color images. I'm using
>>> an HP Scanjet 4570c and have the twain capture software set for maximum
>>> bit depth (48 bit color). When I capture the image it is only 24 bit...
>>
>> From what you wrote (or maybe the way it is phrased), it is the scanning
>> software that is unable to scan at 48 bit color.
>>
>
> Both scanner and capture software are 48 bit and set for that.
> Unfortunately, the scanned image is only 24 bit in gimp. I'm not sure if
> it's a communication issue (between the scanner software and gimp) or if
> gimp can only handle 24 bit depth images. I have not been able to get any
> image software it capture a 48 bit depth image yet - I was hopeful that
> gimp would be my answer. Why I want this is answered below.

So let me see if I get this right. You save your images having scanned them
as Bitmaps, PNM's or whetever, still with 16 bits for each channel. Can you
confirm that it practically gets saved in that way? Looking at the file
size should be an easy way to check. Then, once opened in the GIMP, you get
no warning message, but the image that appears before you is reduced to 32
bit? One thing you could do, if crucial, is to slice your data into chunks
of 16 bit channels and deal with each separately. The usefullness of this
probably depends on whether you have inter-channel dependencies in your
task. Do you want to just handle red? Scan the file and get the first 16
bits of each 48 bit chunk; then dump these into a file and treat as
greyscale.

>>> ...Can gimp
>>> handle 48 bit color depth images?
>>
>> I don't think 1.2 can and I assume 2.2.4 can't either (I know 2.2 fairly
>> well, but have it installed elsewhere). What do you need such high colour
>> depth for if I may ask?
>>
>
> I am scanning a special type of film used for radiation measurement
> (gafchromic film made by ISP Corp.
> http://www.ispcorp.com/products/dosimetry/index.html). The film's response
> can best be seen in the data from the red channel. With 48 bit color depth
> I get 16 bits of data in the red channel (blue and green too but they are
> not used). With only 24 bit I only get 8 bits in each channel (254
> levels), which is not enough resolution.

I was faced with a similar problem weeks ago... high-colour-depth TIFF
images of protein Gel that a colleague passed on to me for registration. I
of course asked why it was necessary (I mean, most monitors won't even
render over 16 or 32bit) and his reply was that AstraZeneca wanted high
precision.

I think many graphics libraries (and as in the case I mentioned -- vision
libraries) do not handle datatypes that they 'think' are impractical.

Roy

Joal Heagney

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Mar 31, 2005, 7:53:53 PM3/31/05
to

Normal Gimp can only handle 24 bit (RGB) or 32 bit (RGBA) colour. I.e. 8
bits per colour channel. If you want to handle larger colour depths,
you'll need to look at cinepaint at http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net

This is a version of Gimp that can handle up to 32 bits per colour channel.

Joal

Michael Meissner

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Mar 31, 2005, 9:17:40 PM3/31/05
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"Peter Brand" <no...@nowhere.net> writes:

When I did this, I used Imagemagick which can handle 48-bit TIFFs do to the
initial processing, and then write out 24-bit TIFF/JPG/PNG's that gimp could
handle. As other people have mentioned there is a version of gimp (cinepaint)
that can handle higher bit depths, but I have also heard it was buggy.

--
Michael Meissner
email: mrm...@the-meissners.org
http://www.the-meissners.org

RSD99

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Apr 1, 2005, 12:10:21 PM4/1/05
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"The GIMP" is an 8-bit per channel image editor. You will need to use a 48
bit (16 bit per channel) image editor.

AFAIK the possibilities would include (but not be limited to)

Digital Light and Color's Picture Window Pro
[Claimed to be "internally full 16 bit."]

Adobe PhotoShop
[Actually seems to be internally full 15 bit.]

Corel PhotoPaint

Some of the ports of the NIH imaging program (IIRC)

Some of the specialized Image Analysis programs

The so-called 'CinePaint' version of The GIMP
[Caution here ... it's essentially an 'Alpha' last I heard.]


"Peter Brand" <no...@nowhere.net> wrote in message
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