X7 Auto Action Preferences

[MikeFromMesa]

I was looking over the X7 Preference settings when I opened the Auto Actions section. The default settings appear to be

Converts image to RGB - 16 bits/channel - Prompt
Converts image to RGB - 8 bits/channel - Always

This is probably clear to everyone except me but what does this refer to? The default is to prompt the user when converting an image to 16 bit RGB. Under what circumstances would they be converting an image to 16 bit color depth and need to prompt the user (or whatever the setting says to do)? When opening the image? When the user tells the software to increase the color depth? When doing some kind of work? I just don't see what would prompt such an action. Same question about converting to 8 bits.

I load raw images and tiffs into X7 and those at at 16 bit color depth. I have never had X7 automatically convert them to 8 bits so I am puzzled about when X7 would "Always" perform such an action. I suspect that I will slap my head when someone tells me what this means (and I have to admit that my forehead sometimes gets a bit sore from constantly doing that ) but I am clearly missing something here.

Thanks.

[Forriner]

Hi MikeFromMesa,

The story from a number of versions ago is that not everything was redone to 16-bits from 8-bits. I still use X4, debating X7, but in X4 not all was 16-bits. Try Effects/3D effects/Drop shadow on a 16-bit per channel image. In X4 I get that warning about converting to 8 bits and the promote background to layer.
Promoting to 16-bits happens with 8-bit per channel files that you're doing 16-bit work on.
Saving a 16-bit file as a JPG (8-bits) will also get the warning.

[MikeFromMesa]

Hi MikeFromMesa,

The story from a number of versions ago is that not everything was redone to 16-bits from 8-bits. I still use X4, debating X7, but in X4 not all was 16-bits. Try Effects/3D effects/Drop shadow on a 16-bit per channel image. In X4 I get that warning about converting to 8 bits and the promote background to layer.
Promoting to 16-bits happens with 8-bit per channel files that you're doing 16-bit work on.
Saving a 16-bit file as a JPG (8-bits) will also get the warning.

Yes. I see that. Apparently X7 is not completely a 16 bit editor. I did not know that. And now it is clearer what these settings are controlling.

Thank you.