http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=28470Question
Why does the data bit depth increase when a raster is projected, rotated, or clipped?
Answer
** This issue has been fixed at version 9.3. **
The data bit depth is increased to provide a value to store the
NODATA value introduced with the rotation in the raster, or if the
raster is clipped using an analysis mask in map algebra or the Extract
by Mask geoprocessing tool.
For example, values range from 0-255 in an 8-bit raster. If a
NODATA value is introduced, the data bit depth must increase to 16-bit
to store the 257th value.