32bit TGA files are read as 8bit images [solved, user error]

[myclay]

It seems that 32bit TGA files are upon opening imported as 8bit images. which means, there is a lot of detail loss

RGBA_Split_output_4.tga

Edited December 17, 2018 by myclay
made the title marked as solved

[Gnobelix]

Hello @myclay,

in Photoshop CC2019 will the RGBA split file, likewise as 8bit images loaded.
Now the question arises is it a 32 bit image,
is the RGBA_Split_output_4.tga the original 32 bit file?

Cheers

[myclay]

Hello Gnobelix, it is the original file.
Good question, windows is saying in file properties that it is indeed a 32bit file so the assumption was that it would be recognized as such.

[Gnobelix]

 

Hello myclay,

I think I know why Affinity displays only 8 bits.
Some programs calculate the color depth by adding per color channels, especially Windows.
Each channel has 8 bits, in sum 24 bits, and if there is still an alpha channel, an additional 8 bits are added = 32 Bit.
Affinity can not represent alpha channels, that can only Photoshop.
I hope the answer is correct.

 

Cheers

 

PS. (JPG files are displayed in Windows with 24-bit color depth)

[hifred]

5 hours ago, myclay said:

It seems that 32bit TGA files are upon opening imported as 8bit images. which means, there is a lot of detail loss

Sure that you don't mix up thing here? A simple 8bit per channel colour  image with Alpha-channel sometimes gets referred to as a 32 bit image (4 times 8 bit). Without stored transparency values that tga is a 24 bit image (3 times 8 for RGB). 

A HDR image (which far more often gets referred to as a 32 bit image) has these 32 bit in each individual colour channel (resulting in a total value of 96). TGA does only support 8 bit colour depth per channel – the naming in the Explorer Details dialog is not exactly a happy choice.

What may turn out even more irritating is that a hdr image shows up with just 24 bit depth – although this image stores millions of colour values your 32 bit tga can not deal with. Maybe someone can explain this – I believe the correct value had to be 96 here.

[myclay]

indeed I mixed up in a monumental way, the error has been clearly at my side, I got confused due to the properties numbers.