Saving as .psd only allows 24 bit depth

[gowlerp]

I've recently been looking for a cost effective image editor to use alongside Lightroom and have been considering PantShop Pro X4. I downloaded the trial version and it looks like it will provide most the functionality I have been looking for ie. layers support in 16 bit/channel. It also integrates quite nicely with Lightroom allowing the transfer of a image using .psd format retaining the 16 bit/channel during transfer and subsequent editing. Unfortunately when attempting to save back in .psd format it presents the message;

"Because of the requirements of the specified file format, the saved file will have a bit depth of 24 (16.7 million colors). Would you like to continue?"

As far as I am aware .psd doesn't inherently have this limitation so is this a licensing limitation, a coding limitation in PaintShop Pro X4, a bug or a lack of knowledge on my part and there is a way to do this? I appreciate that the edited image could of course be exported as a PSPIMAGE file to retain the option of re-editing or as a tif file to allow importing back into Lightroom but if it exported the full bit depth to .psd it would nicely allow the full cycle out of and back into lightroom fairly seamlessly keeping the least amount of extra files.

[LeviFiction]

I cannot say for sure, because I don't know, but I would lean toward a licensing issue in the sense that PSP is forced to use an older version of the PSD format because PS tends to keep these things proprietary. That and there is also the possibility that PSP's file formats are rarely updated to include the latest and the greatest.

[gowlerp]

Be a shame if it is as, I believe, there are some other non-Adobe products that can do it such as Photoline which would suggest that if it is the case of licensing being the constraint that it's more about the cost for licensing as opposed whether it is an available option.

[gowlerp]

Actually looking at it it appears that Adobe openly publishes the .psd file format, http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photos ... matashtml/ , so guessing licensing maybe isn't required for using it in which case it implies it is possibly a Corel design decision.