I just purchased Fred Miranda's B&W Workflow Pro (With CS) and while it seems to work quite well and its possible to get some good results I am a bit concerned by the fact that it seems to be converting my files from 16bit to 8bit.

For instance as soon as you start the action the image goes from 16bit to 8bit then back to 16bit, then when changing settings it seems to convert back and forth quite often. (I am seeing this in the title bar of the open image)

Now this seems bad to me as once converted to 8bit all the extra level data will be gone so what’s the point in converting it back to 16bit, especially as its claimed to work with 16bit files. This to me does not seem to be the case.

Does anyone else use this and have any comments; am I seeing this the wrong way?

I have not used any of FM actions in a long time, but suspect he may be doing that to apply a specific filter that is only 8-bit? You should be able to open up the action and see what he is doing in each step...

You might also want to download the trial of Nik's Silver FX and give that a whirl for B&W conversions

He has done them via the 'Automate' section so they dont behave like a true action so you cant (I think) open them and see whats going on.
Silver FX is way to expensive!

I also have the FM BW Pro (V1.5.1) and use it occasionally. I can't tell from watching the title bar -- happens too fast for me -- but don't notice any changes to 8 bit. However, the duotone conversion in Photoshop only works in 8 bit mode. Perhaps the FM software uses the Photoshop duotone feature when duotone is part of the conversion.

Can't help you with FM plugin but I suspect that Jack is right; some filter is forcing it to 8-bit.

Try http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/index.htm - Their B/W Styler has some nice versitility for $49.00