16 Bit Selections

16 bit editing workflows are becoming more common. Color Folio is now offering 16 bit Tango scans, which means you can extend the range of your image corrections in full 16 bit space from beyond the scan itself all the way into Adobe Photoshop, with all it's editing power.

Some tools and functions are not available for use on 16 bit files from within Photshop, even in the latest version 6 which added a lot of new support for these high bit files. There are a number of common selection techniques not available, such as Color Range and using Quick Mask mode to paint mask refinements.

There is a solution available. Simply make a copy of the 16 bit file and convert it to 8 bits. Make your selection using all your favorite methods. Now you can use a couple of methods for transferring the selection over to the 16 bit file.

First you can open an adjustment layer, which will automatically incorporate your selection into its layer mask, and simply close it without making any changes. Now when you activate the 16 bit file and use Load Selection, you should be able to select that layer and load the selection that is captured in its layer mask. Alternatively, you can save the selection in the 8 bit file as an alpha channel and retrieve it as such once again from the Load Selection command in the 16 bit file.