Converting 8Bit to True 16Bit?

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I am a 3D artist and I use a lot of textures for bump mapping etc…

If I take a regular 8bit black and white jpg image and add a blur to it with PS set to 16bit. Am I Gaining information? (I realize my image will be blurry, and I will lose sharpness detail) but will I GAIN pixel information with the blur gradients that are created?

So if I saved it out as Tiff, EXR, etc.. in 16bit, would it be a true 16bit image?

EDIT:

Added some test (have no idea if this was a fair comparision).
Clearly converting an 8 bit to 16bit is better. So something is being added.
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Answer

Take a look at this: What’s the point of capturing 14 bit images and editing on 8 bit monitors

enter image description here

In this case, yes and no… it depends.

No, because your initial 8-bit image will have the same gaps as image B, regardless that you transform it into a 16-bit image. The information will not change.

enter image description here

The difference will be noticeable if you “invent” new in between information, for example, smudging the image. In this scenario, you will have new information filling the space you prepared by transforming the image into 16 bits.

enter image description here

But this new information will not be yet noticeable until you apply a similar transformation as image C and D on my original image.

But if your render can be saved as 16 bits, sure, save it as such. Some render engines generate an image of more than a 24 bits (RGB) file.

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : icYou520 , Answer Author : Rafael

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