16 bit Tiff

Hi there,
I'm working with photos in 16 bit tiff format but I'm trying to use the modification algorithm from HP which only saves them in 8 bit tiff. If I then put them back into PSP I can increase the colour depth back to 16 bit but will it be genuine or will I have lost the true quality from the original 16 bit?
Thanks in advance.
Regards

You will of course loose quality.

I can't see how there would not be loss of information.

Thanks for that. I had assumed I would but if the format works so that the data is stored in 16 bit but only 8 bits are displayed then presumably the quality could be restored.
Regards

If it displays in 8 bit it's one thing, because then the 16 bit data can be retained in memory. But if it saves into 8 bit, there simply woulnd't be a location for it to remember the extended info, and it would be lost as soon as you exit your application or re-load the new 8-bit file.