Nikon LS-50, colorspace conversion and 8-bit scanning

[larserik]

To save in JPG I have to set Nikon Scan to 8-bits, and that raises the following question: Does the scanner still scan at 14-bit, and does the post-processing and conversion to selected colorspace (like "sRGB" og "Adobe RGB") also use 14-bit, using 8-bits only when saving the image?

Or will 8-bits be used all the way (scanning, post-processing, conversion to selected colorspace)? If the last is true then this will loose valuable color-info both in the post-processing and conversion to color space (if one uses CMS enabled). 8-bit has only 256 levels for each channel (RGB) and a conversion from one colorspace (like raw "Scanner RGB") to another (like "sRGB" or "Adobe RGB") are bound to suffer then, right?

Is there a way to make sure Nikon Scan uses 14-bits during scan, post-processing and conversion to colorspace, and still be able to save the final image as 8-bit (JPG or BMP). To be sure that as much info and highest resolution is used during the processing and conversion?