selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

If it couldn’t handle 16-bit TIFF it wouldn’t let you print it.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

It may be just my imagining, but to me the Tiff image looks a little blacker on the one end and the transition from black to white is a little smoother.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The TIFF came first and the JPEG was made from it.

Unless you have a 10-bit display, both should look the same on the screen but different in a print.

MJPerini

RG has this correct, Best practice for critical work is to to shoot RAW and keep the greatest bit depth and gamut (color space) for as long as possible while editing. (This helps avoid banding)Then output a file appropriate to the intended use.
While it is certainly true that many displays are 8 bit sRGB (at best), Good graphics displays are now almost all 10 bit. The best pigment printers can print a a much larger color gamut than even the best displays.
So IF you print on such a printer (yourself or through a print house) this is quite important.
And No, you do not send 250-500MB 16 b TIFF files via email, you use them to print, or FTP them to your print house.
Most people DO NOT need to do this, and I do not do it most of the time, because for most uses JPEGs are fine, or even required, like email or the web
No one Prints every picture they take, and even when you do, sometimes JPEGs are fine, but for my best work, it is always saved as a 16b TIFF Print file. And no it doesn't clog anything up, because I print perhaps 5% of what I take. I use COLOR BYTE's Image Print Rip to control an Epson 5000 17" pigment printer. Once a file is saved as a final 16b TIFF Print File, image Print saves it in a database, so I can reprint on demand.
Also remember that as long as you have a RAW workflow, you do not need to keep lots of files as 16b TIFFs, because your editing program can generate them as needed, just like a JPEG.
The reason I keep 16B TIFF Print files is for convenience and the ability to make a new print identical to the last one. It also contains things like output sharpening, and the levels that make the best PRINT. I may have a different version for generating the best JPEG for display or email.
I am not suggesting that anyone else should do this, and I did not invent this workflow, I learned it from master printers. It is appropriate for what I do. I do very little professional work now, nearly all personal work.
The nice part about Photography is that it can be enjoyed at many levels, and enjoyment is why most of us do it.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The optimal approach is to do all of the editing during the raw file conversion using parameter driven edits to achieve an end product.

Lightroom and Capture One do this naturally. They let you redo or remove edits without having to go back and repeat anything.

My editing ends once I export from C1 although some might want to do some additional things that C1 and Lightroom can't handle.

tcthome Loc: NJ

I do unless it is meant to be there to seperate the different ones/shades of B&W.

tcthome Loc: NJ

Enjoying the post, thanks for putting it up. Since banding & srgb was mentioned, does a larger sensor like medium format help with this? Also, I seen a u-tube vid with a Scottish landscape photographer Alex Neil was on as a guest & says he does his whole color workflow from capture to print in srgb, I know a little off the OP's subject but ,,,

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It's hard to understand the workflow, which might be the root-cause of the issue.

Let's assume we start with a RAW file, and a digital editor that works against the native RAW, with a further assumption of the ProPhotoRGB colorspace. In this workflow, you probably can simply skip the TIFF, as well as avoid banding issues in a single output JPEG for printing.

Let's see the TIFF output compared to the JPEG output, where each file is just the output from the digital editor from a fully edited (completed) B&W image. That's not my understanding of the workflow used to create the initial examples.

Moreover, can the base contention of the thread be replicated in multiple relevant software, rather than possibly a C1-specific result?

profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Just to add a bit to Chuck's good response, let me rind those of us who edit the jpg files from our cameras whether mostly or from time to time that there are a number oof lossless JPEG formats to which we can save our intermediate and even final edited images.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-780424-1.html

The only thing we need to do when we need to send a copy to a friend, to print, or to post on the web is to open the lossless JPEG file and save it as a regular JPEGH or print it from our viewing program

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The TIFF was created by placing a gradient from 0 to 65535 (black to white) on a blank sheet using Picture Window Pro v7.

Since the base image is not 65,536 pixels wide, the separation in TIFF values is about 33 units per pixel.

The TIFF was saved and then converted into a JPEG with values from 0 to 255. Since the image is a lot more than 256 pixels wide, each value covers a band with a finite width in pixels, about 8 pixels per JPEG value.

The banding is visible because a one unit change in JPEG value is sharpened by our visual perception, an optical illusion.

C1 had nothing to do with it. Neither image was touched after being created.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Why are you casually intermingling pixel resolution with bit-depth with colorspace? I usually ignore your 20-page back n forth with other members on technical details. I'm starting to see why they get that long ....

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

They are pure B&W tonal values. Colorspace has nothing to do with it.

Maybe now you can see why the back and forth goes on until the penny drops.

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

The main take away from medium format is the bigger field of view and larger pixels, in number and physical size.
To some degree they do help capture smoother gradients/colors but sensor design, analog to digital converter & the bit depth are the real players when it concerns banding. An inappropriate monitor may also show banding even when the file does not have it.

With regards to TIFF, it is a container file type. It can contain a representation of the full RAW file plus "tags" or instructions and other stuffs bundled with the image. In a way, it is not dissimilar to PDF or a Word document, only it was designed primarily for image handling, like DNG etc. with the aim of standardizing print files.

Meaning, it is just a matter of choice to use it or not in one's work flow.

I for one, prefers PNG instead of TIFF for high gamut images if not printing them directly. Otherwise, I use Illustrator as my container, instead of TIFF.

RGB or Adobe RGB is a colorspace that has a bigger gamut than sRGB. The issue is that most printers are only capable of showing the gamut of sRGB. Hence, it is possible to get off-colors during the conversion in the printer from RGB to sRGB.

If one is intent on printing at the end, then choosing and working on the smaller sRGB colorspace may be a better option for a more consistent and predictable result.

The main thing to remember in handling image files is that it can only degrade. Meaning one can start from the highest quality and in every conversion or editing step, it becomes worse, even if the file size becomes bigger.
Hence, Non-destructive editing like ACR should be the first step and if possible should only be the step carried and the first conversion to PNG or JPG etc, be the last step.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

And your monitor doesn't care whether 24MP came from a crop, full frame or medium format sensor.

Remove the EXIF and it's just a bunch of pixels.