Originally Posted by silvershoes 
Two thoughts:
(1) I never have a hard drive full of anything. You need to investigate a good redundant backup scenario.
Never worked in a small biz where they just never upgrade much...
anyways it was a bit of exaggeration.
Originally Posted by silvershoes (2) The web is full of rumors and "expert" opinions and claims, some of which are simply a sales pitch. A lot of scanners that claim 16 bit have been shown to be 12, for example; the scans are still lovely. If it really matters to you, why not go to the source (the people who make your software package) and ask customer support?
You can download trials of just about every RAW processor on the market and do your own head-to-head comparison with your own images. The software's only half the equation; your own processing preferences and skill level matter just as much as the number of bits.
Good luck!
Yes but even with this hard line exporting FAKE 16bit files is just dumb or insulting. Whichever you prefer..
I'm looking into lightznoe right now (quite cheap currently) and yes there is a lot more to photography then processing (but it's fun to state the obvious)
A corollary to this is 8 bit color LCD's (x million colors or "UP TO" x million colors
)or are they 6 bit interpolated. And did they change panels even keeping the same model numbers???
There are a LOT of windmills out there... I have mine...
No confrontation intended, just conversing.....