I've read a lot of the "historical documents" on the 'net about wanting to get 16 bit/ch tiff files from the Qimage raw converter. Is there a way to do this yet? I also don't understand what I've read about the editor being 8-bit, but the program will dither 16-bit images to improve performance with the Windows 8-bit drivers. Is that only when images have not been edited in Qimage, but have come in from someplace else? Naturally I ask because I'd love to get 16-bit images saved after refining the raw.

Glad you bumped the thread because I had looked at it and didn't have the time to reply at the moment and then it got marked "read" and I forgot to reply.  All of the edits you do in refine are done in 16 bits/channel because that's where you need it most: where you adjust exposure, shadows, highlights, and optimize your dynamic range.  Once you've gotten the image to the proper exposure, some of the final filters are applied such as lens corrections and sharpening in 8 bits/channel because by that time, the data is all "in range" and easily fits in 8 bit/channel which is what your monitor and printer use.  For this reason, the fully developed raw will come out of the process in 8 bits/channel.

For something like MS ICE or really anything that is intended to be viewed on a Windows monitor or printer, you actually want the final image to be 8 bits/channel because Qimage will produce the best quality 8 bit/channel image that is monitor/printer ready by dithering between 8 bit values.  Bottom line: you'll get near 16 bit/channel gradients in an 8 bit/channel image that is optimized for your output devices.

I may consider adding an option to output the true raw data to a 16 bit/channel TIFF in case people want to have a raw TIFF to edit in another program.  But it wouldn't be a "developed" image and would have little use because if you wanted to do that, you'd probably just open the raw in your photo editor anyway.

Regards,
Mike

Off the main subject a little but ...
I whole heartily agree. Many raw conversion programs have multiple sliders with names that need translation and seem to take some time to work out which sliders needs to be used.

QU's RAW pre-sets for smart noise reduction, sharpening and exposure mean that leaves only 3 sliders. The unique system of drawing rectangles works well especially  for highlight recovery using a magenta box. Drawing the rectangles for ODR focus areas does take a little practice to get the best results. However, it is a quick system and the A-B views allow easy comparison for different settings.
Terry