Meaning of output_bps in rawpy.Params

Question

I am new to image processing world and want to use the rawpy library for processing some images. I came across output_bps param in the postprocess function which does not have any explanation associated in the docs: https://letmaik.github.io/rawpy/api/rawpy.Params.html#rawpy.Params . Except that it can be 8 or 16.

May be that's because its too primitive to be explained? Any explanation of this param will be appreciated.

Answer 1

"bps" stands for "bits per sample", and a pixel in this case consists of three samples: red, green and blue. So you can use output_bps to tell postprocess() how many bits per sample you'd like to have in the output image, ie, how much color precision you need. Typically 8 bits is enough, but 16 can be useful if you're going to do any post-processing.