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Color depth
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Contents Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also Color depth
Featured content known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to 1-bit monochrome
Current events indicate the color of a single pixel, in a bitmapped image or 8-bit grayscale
Random article 8-bit color
video frame buffer, or the number of bits used for each color
Donate to Wikipedia 15- or 16-bit color (high color)
component of a single pixel.[1][2][3][4] For consumer video
Wikipedia store 24-bit color (true color)
standards, such as High Efficiency Video Coding (H.265), 30-, 36-, or 48-bit color (deep color)
Interaction
the bit depth specifies the number of bits used for each color Related
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component.[1][2][3][4] When referring to a pixel the concept Indexed color
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can be defined as bits per pixel (bpp), which specifies the
RGB color model
Recent changes number of bits used. When referring to a color component Web-safe color
Contact page the concept can be defined as bits per component, bits per VTE
channel, bits per color (all three abbreviated bpc), and also
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bits per pixel component, bits per color channel or bits per sample (bps).[1][2][5] Color depth
Related changes is only one aspect of color representation, expressing how finely levels of color can be
Upload file expressed (a.k.a. color precision); the other aspect is how broad a range of colors can be
Special pages expressed (the gamut). The definition of both color precision and gamut is accomplished with a
Permanent link
color encoding specification which assigns a digital code value to a location in a color space.
Page information
Wikidata item Comparison: same image on five different color depths (bits). Different looks
Cite this page (color/greyscale/black-and-white ... dithering), but also different file sizes.
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16,777,216 colors
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Contents
1 Indexed color
2 Direct color
2.1 8-bit color
2.2 High color (15/16-bit)
2.3 18-bit
2.4 True color (24-bit)
2.5 Deep color (30/36/48-bit)
3 Industry support
3.1 Television color
4 See also
5 References

Indexed color [edit]

Main article: Indexed color

With the relatively low color depth, the stored value is typically a number representing the index
into a color map or palette (a form of vector quantization). 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
VRAM, but while the best VGA systems only offered an 18-bit (262,144 color) palette from
which colors could be chosen, all color Macintosh video hardware offered a 24-bit (16 million
color) palette). Modifiable palettes are sometimes referred to as pseudocolor palettes.

1-bit color (21 = 2 colors): monochrome, often black and white, compact Macintoshes, Atari
ST.
2-bit color (22 = 4 colors): CGA, gray-scale early NeXTstation, color Macintoshes, Atari ST.

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3-bit color (23 = 8 colors): many early home computers with TV displays, including the ZX
Spectrum and BBC Micro
4-bit color (24 = 16 colors): as used by EGA and by the least common denominator VGA
standard at higher resolution, color Macintoshes, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC.
5-bit color (25 = 32 colors): Original Amiga chipset
6-bit color (26 = 64 colors): Original Amiga chipset
8-bit color (28 = 256 colors): most early color Unix workstations, VGA at low resolution,
Super VGA, color Macintoshes, Atari TT, Amiga AGA chipset, Falcon030, Acorn
Archimedes.
12-bit color (212 = 4096 colors): some Silicon Graphics systems, Color NeXTstation
systems, and Amiga systems in HAM mode.

Old graphics chips, particularly those used in home computers and video game consoles, often
feature an additional level of palette mapping for individual sprites and tiles in order to increase
the maximum number of simultaneously displayed colors, while minimizing use of then-
expensive memory (& bandwidth). For example, in the ZX Spectrum, the picture is stored in a
two-color format, but these two colors can be separately defined for each rectangular block of
8x8 pixels.

Direct color [edit]

A typical computer monitor and video card may offer 8 bits of color precision (256 output levels)
per R/G/B color channel, for an overall 24-bit color space (or 32-bit space, with alpha
transparency bits, which have little bearing on the color precision), though earlier standards
offered 6 bits per channel (64 levels) or less; the DVD-Video and Blu-ray Disc standards support
video with a bit depth of 8-bits per color YCbCr with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.[6][7]

8-bit color [edit]

Main article: 8-bit color

A very limited but true direct color system, there are 3 bits (8 possible levels) for each of the R
and G components, and the two remaining bits in the byte pixel to the B component (four
levels), enabling 256 (8 8 4) different colors. The normal human eye is less sensitive to the
blue component than to the red or green (two thirds of the eye's receptors process the longer
wavelengths[8]), so it is assigned one bit less than the others. Used, amongst others, in the
MSX2 system series of computers in the early to mid 1990s.

Do not confuse with an indexed color depth of 8bpp (although it can be simulated in such
systems by selecting the adequate table).

High color (15/16-bit) [edit]

Main article: High color

High color supports 15/16-bit for three RGB colors. In 16-bit direct color, there can be 4 bits (16
possible levels) for each of the R, G, and B components, plus optionally 4 bits for alpha
(transparency), enabling 4,096 (16 16 16) different colors with 16 levels of transparency. Or
in some systems there can be 5 bits per color component and 1 bit of alpha (32768 colors, just

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fully transparent or not); or there can be 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, and 5 bits for blue, for
65536 colors with no transparency.[9] These color depths are sometimes used in small devices
with a color display, such as mobile telephones.

Variants with 5 or more bits per color component are sometimes called high color,[10] which is
sometimes considered sufficient to display photographic images.[11]

18-bit [edit]

Almost all of the least expensive LCDs (such as typical twisted nematic types) provide 18-bit
color (64 64 64 = 262,144 combinations) to achieve faster color transition times, and use
either dithering or frame rate control to approximate 24-bit-per-pixel true color,[12] or throw away
6 bits of color information entirely. More expensive LCDs (typically IPS) can display 24-bit or
greater color depth.

True color (24-bit) [edit]

"True Color" redirects here. For images with natural color rendition, see true-color.

True color supports 24-bit for three RGB colors. It provides a method of representing and
storing graphical-image information (especially in computer processing) in an RGB color space
such that a very large number of colors, shades, and hues can be displayed in an image, such
as in high-quality photographic images or complex graphics. Usually, true color is defined to
mean 256 shades of red, green, and blue, for a total of 224, or alternately 2563, or 16,777,216
color variations. The human eye can discriminate up to ten million colors.[13] Color processing in
the eye occurs through retinal cone cells which are of three types, although not corresponding
to red, green and blue hues.

"True color" can also refer to an RGB display-mode that does not need a color look-up table
(CLUT).[14]

For each pixel, generally one byte is used for each channel while the fourth byte (if present) is
being used either as an alpha channel, data, or simply ignored. Byte order is usually either RGB
or BGR. Some systems exist with more than 8 bits per channel, and these are often also
referred to as true color (for example a 48-bit true-color scanner).

Even with true color, monochromatic images, which are restricted to 256 levels, owing to their
single channel, can sometimes still reveal visible banding artifacts.

True color, like other RGB color models, cannot express colors outside of the gamut of its RGB
color space (generally sRGB).

Macintosh systems refer to 24-bit color as "millions of colors".

RGBA color space, or 32-bit color, is a variant of true color in which the additional 8 bits are
allocated to transparency and indicate how transparent the element is to which the color is
assigned, when overlaid on other elements.

Deep color (30/36/48-bit) [edit]

Deep color consists of a billion or more colors.[15] The xvYCC, sRGB, and YCbCr color spaces
can be used with deep color systems.[16]

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Deep color supports 30/36/48 bits per pixel across three RGB colors, also referred to as
10/12/16 bits per channel/color/component/sample. With an alpha channel of the same
precision this becomes 40/48/64 bits per pixel. Video cards with 10 bits per component (30-bit
color RGB), started coming to market in the late 1990s. An early example was the Radius
ThunderPower card for the Macintosh, which included extensions for QuickDraw and Adobe
Photoshop plugins to support editing 30-bit images.[17]

Systems using more than 24 bits in a 32-bit pixel for actual color data exist, but most of them
opt for a 30-bit implementation with two bits of padding so that they can have an even 10 bits of
color for each channel, similar to many HiColor systems.[18] 10-bit professional video displays
are actually providing 10 bits per color channel, and use a value of 95 for black and 685 for
white; the values from 685 to 1023 are used for "whiter than white" images like glare, specular
highlights, and similar details.[19]

While some high-end graphics workstation systems and the accessories marketed toward use
with such systems, as from SGI, have always used more than 8 bits per channel, such as 12 or
16 (36-bit or 48-bit color), such color depths have only worked their way into the general market
more recently.[citation needed]

As bit depths climb above 8 bits per channel, some systems use the extra bits to store more
intensity range than can be displayed all at once, as in high dynamic range imaging (HDRI).
Floating point numbers are numbers in excess of 'full' white and black. This allows an image to
accurately depict the intensity of the sun and deep shadows in the same color space for less
distortion after intensive editing. Various models describe these ranges, many employing 32-bit
accuracy per channel. In 1999 Industrial Light & Magic released the OpenEXR image file format
as an open standard that supports 16-bit-per-channel half-precision floating-point numbers.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) defines the Main 10 profile which allows for a bit depth of
8-bits to 10-bits per sample with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.[2][3][4] 8-bits per sample allows for
256 shades per primary color (a total of 16.78 million colors) while 10-bits per sample allows for
1024 shades per primary color (a total of 1.07 billion colors).[20][21] The Main 10 profile was
added at the October 2012 HEVC meeting based on proposal JCTVC-K0109 which proposed
that a 10-bit profile be added to HEVC for consumer applications.[4] The proposal stated that
this was to allow for improved video quality and to support the Rec. 2020 color space that will be
used by UHDTV.[4] The second version of HEVC has five profiles that allow for a bit depth of 8-
bits to 16-bits per sample.[22]

Industry support [edit]

The HDMI 1.3 specification defines bit depths of 30 bits (1.073 billion colors), 36 bits (68.71
billion colors), and 48 bits (281.5 trillion colors).[16] In that regard, the Nvidia Quadro graphics
cards manufactured after 2006 support 30-bit deep color[23] as do some models of the Radeon
HD 5900 series such as the HD 5970.[24][25] The ATI FireGL V7350 graphics card supports 40-
bit and 48-bit color.[26]

The DisplayPort specification also supports color depths greater than 24 bpp.

At WinHEC 2008, Microsoft announced that color depths of 30 bits and 48 bits would be
supported in Windows 7, along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which can be converted to

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xvYCC output).[27][28]

Television color [edit]

Virtually all television displays and computer displays form images by varying the strength of
just three primary colors: red, green, and blue. For example, bright yellow is formed by roughly
equal red and green contributions, with little or no blue contribution.

Increasing the number of color primaries can increase the color gamut that a display can
reproduce, although whether this results in a difference to the human eye is not yet proven,
since humans are trichromats.[citation needed] Recent technologies such as Texas Instruments's
BrilliantColor augment the typical red, green, and blue channels with up to three other primaries:
cyan, magenta and yellow.[29] Mitsubishi and Samsung, among others, use this technology in
some TV sets to extend the range of displayable colors.[citation needed] The Sharp Aquos line of
televisions has introduced Quattron technology, which augments the usual RGB pixel
components with a yellow subpixel. See also list of color palettes.

Analog CRTs, whether color or monochrome, use continuous voltage signals which do not have
a fixed number of intensities.

See also [edit]

Audio bit depth corresponding concept for digital audio

Bit plane
List of color palettes
List of colors (compact)
Mach banding
RGB color model

References [edit]

1. ^ a b c G.J. Sullivan; J.-R. Ohm; W.-J. Han; T. Wiegand (2012-05-25). "Overview of the High
Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) Standard" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Circuits and
Systems for Video Technology. Retrieved 2013-05-18.
2. ^ a b c d G.J. Sullivan; Heiko Schwarz; Thiow Keng Tan; Thomas Wiegand (2012-08-22).
"Comparison of the Coding Efficiency of Video Coding Standards Including High Efficiency
Video Coding (HEVC)" (PDF). IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.
Retrieved 2013-05-18.
3. ^ a b c "High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) text specification draft 10 (for FDIS & Consent)" .
JCT-VC. 2013-01-17. Retrieved 2013-05-18.
4. ^ a b c d e Alberto Dueas; Adam Malamy (2012-10-18). "On a 10-bit consumer-oriented profile
in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)" . JCT-VC. Retrieved 2013-05-18.
5. ^ "After Effects / Color basics" . Adobe Systems. Retrieved 2013-07-14.
6. ^ Clint DeBoer (2008-04-16). "HDMI Enhanced Black Levels, xvYCC and RGB" . Audioholics.
Retrieved 2013-06-02.
7. ^ "Digital Color Coding" (PDF). Telairity. Retrieved 2013-06-02.
8. ^ Pantone, How we see color
9. ^ Edward M. Schwalb (2003). iTV handbook: technologies and standards . Prentice Hall PTR.

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Color depth - Wikipedia

p.138. ISBN978-0-13-100312-5.
10. ^ Ben Waggoner (2002). Compression for great digital video: power tips, techniques, and
common sense . Focal Press. p.34. ISBN978-1-57820-111-2.
11. ^ David A. Karp (1998). Windows 98 annoyances . O'Reilly Media. p.156. ISBN978-1-56592-
417-8.
12. ^ Kowaliski, Cyril; Gasior, Geoff; Wasson, Scott (July 2, 2012). "TR's Summer 2012 system
guide" . The Tech Report. p.14. Retrieved January 19, 2013.
13. ^ D. B. Judd and G. Wyszecki (1975). Color in Business, Science and Industry. Wiley Series in
Pure and Applied Optics (third ed.). New York: Wiley-Interscience. pp.388. ISBN0-471-45212-
2.
14. ^ Charles A. Poynton (2003). Digital Video and HDTV . Morgan Kaufmann. p.36. ISBN1-
55860-792-7.
15. ^ Keith Jack (2007). Video demystified: a handbook for the digital engineer (5th ed.). Newnes.
p.168. ISBN978-0-7506-8395-1.
16. ^ a b "HDMI Specification 1.3a Section 6.7.2" . HDMI Licensing, LLC. 2006-11-10. Retrieved
2009-04-09.
17. ^ "Radius Ships ThunderPower 30/1920 Graphics Card Capable of Super Resolution 1920
1080 and Billions of Colors" . Business Wire. 1996-08-05.
18. ^ 30-bit example: BMP file format#Pixel format
19. ^ "8-bit vs. 10-bit Color Space" (PDF). January 2010.
20. ^ Carl Furgusson (2013-06-11). "Focus on...HEVC: The background behind the game-changing
standard- Ericsson" . Ericsson. Retrieved 2013-06-21.
21. ^ Simon Forrest (2013-06-20). "The emergence of HEVC and 10-bit colour formats" .
Imagination Technologies. Retrieved 2013-06-21.
22. ^ Jill Boyce; Jianle Chen; Ying Chen; David Flynn; Miska M. Hannuksela; Matteo Naccari; Chris
Rosewarne; Karl Sharman; Joel Sole; Gary J. Sullivan; Teruhiko Suzuki; Gerhard Tech; Ye-Kui
Wang; Krzysztof Wegner; Yan Ye (2014-07-11). "Draft high efficiency video coding (HEVC)
version 2, combined format range extensions (RExt), scalability (SHVC), and multi-view (MV-
HEVC) extensions" . JCT-VC. Retrieved 2014-07-11.
23. ^ "Chapter 32. Configuring Depth 30 Displays (driver release notes)" . NVIDIA.
24. ^ "ATI Radeon HD 5970 Graphics Feature Summary" . AMD. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
25. ^ "AMD's 10-bit Video Output Technology" (PDF). AMD. Retrieved 2010-03-31.
26. ^ Smith, Tony (20 March 2006). "ATI unwraps first 1GB graphics card" . Retrieved 2006-10-03.
27. ^ "WinHEC 2008 GRA-583: Display Technologies" . Microsoft. 2008-11-06. Archived from the
original on 2008-12-27. Retrieved 2008-12-04.
28. ^ "Windows 7 High Color Support" . Softpedia. 2008-11-26. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
29. ^ Hutchison, David (5 April 2006). "Wider color gamuts on DLP display systems through
BrilliantColor technology" . Digital TV DesignLine. Retrieved 2007-08-16.

VTE Color topics

Pink Red Orange Yellow Brown Green Cyan Blue Indigo Purple Violet Magenta White
Gray Black

Electromagnetic spectrum
(Light Rainbow Visible)

Spectral colors Chromophore

(Structural coloration
Color physics
Animal coloration)
On Vision and Colors Metamerism
(Spectral power distribution)
Color vision
(Color blindness
(Achromatopsia)
test)

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Tetrachromacy
(Color constancy Color term)
Color depth
Color science (Color photography Spot color Color printing Web colors
Color perception
Color mapping Color code Color management Chrominance
False color)
Chroma key Color balance Color cast
Color temperature Eigengrau
Color symbolism Color preferences Lscher color test
Color psychology Kruithof curve Political color National colors Chromophobia
Chromotherapy
Color model
(additive subtractive)
Color mixing
(Primary color
Secondary color Tertiary color (intermediate) Quaternary color
Color space
Quinary color Aggressive color (warm) Receding color (cool))

Pastel colors Color gradient

Color
Color tool
(Monochromatic colors Complementary colors
philosophy
Color scheme Analogous colors Achromatic colors (Neutral) Polychromatic colors)
Impossible colors Light-on-dark Tinctures in heraldry
Chromaticity diagram Color solid Color wheel Color triangle
Color theory
Color analysis (art) Color realism (art style)
Red Green Blue Yellow Orange Purple Pink Brown
Basic terms
Black Gray White
Linguistic relativity and the color naming debate
(Bluegreen distinction in language)
Color history
Color terms Cultural differences
(Color in Chinese culture Traditional colors of Japan
Human skin color)
Hue
(Dichromatism)
Colorfulness (chroma and saturation)
Color dimensions
Tints and shades Lightness (tone and value) Grayscale
Pantone Color Marketing Group The Color Association of the United States
Color
International Colour Authority International Commission on Illumination (CIE)
organizations
International Color Consortium International Colour Association
List of colors: AF List of colors: GM List of colors: NZ List of colors (compact)
List of colors by shade List of color palettes List of color spaces
Lists
List of Crayola crayon colors
(history pencil colors marker colors)
Color chart
List of fictional colors List of RAL colors
Vision Image processing Multi-primary color display
(Quattron)
Qualia Lighting
Related
Local color (visual art)

Category Portal Index of color-related articles

Categories: Color depths Television technology

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