> Imagine a gradient that smoothly transitions from black to white. 8 bit color means only 256 shades of luminance, which would quickly show banding artifacts.

> Imagine a gradient that smoothly transitions from black to white. 8 bit color means only 256 shades of luminance, which would quickly show banding artifacts. Only if you don't dither. Which is like free bits of precision given today's monitors resolutions. I don't disagree with the rest of your point (although I do believe that just because there's a 20-bit dynamic range one should represent it by 20 bits of precision that's an arbitrary choice) (not even the best choice, IMO). Just want to emphasize that, a statement being made all over this thread, that "less bits = you gonna get banding", just means you're doing it wrong, thinking about it wrong, and might therefore even end up with banding if you had enough bits but wasted them at some point in the pipeline.