Color depth

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Pixel color depth
1-bit monochrome 8-bit grayscale 8-bit color 16-bit Highcolor 24-bit Truecolor 30/36/48-bit Deep Color
Related
RGB color model Indexed color Palette Web-safe color
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Color depth or bit depth, is a computer graphics term describing the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel (bpp), particularly when specified along with the number of bits used. Higher color depth gives a broader range of distinct colors.

Contents 1 Indexed color 2 Direct color 2.1 8-bit direct color 2.2 12-bit direct color 2.3 HighColor 2.4 LCD displays 2.5 Truecolor 2.6 30-bit color 2.7 32-bit color 2.8 Beyond truecolor 2.8.1 Television color 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Indexed color

Main article: Indexed color

With relatively low color depth, the stored value is typically a number representing the index into a color map or palette. The colors available in the palette itself may be fixed by the hardware or modifiable within the limits of the hardware (for instance, both color Macintosh systems and VGA-equipped IBM-PCs typically ran at 8-bit due to limited <a href="/wiki/VRAM" titl