Today, technologies and devices make it possible to make an image so bright and saturated that it will be even more beautiful than its real prototype. The quality of the transmitted image depends on several indicators at once: the number of megapixels, image resolution, its format, and so on. One more property belongs to them - color depth. What is it, and how to define and calculate it?
General information
Color depth is the maximum number of color shades that an image can contain. This number is measured in bits (the number of binary bits that define the color of each pixel and hue in a bitmap graphic). For example, a single pixel with a color depth of 1 bit can take on two values: white and black. And the more important the color depth is, the more diverse the image will be, including many colors and shades. She is also responsible for the accuracy of the image transmission. Everything is the same here: the higher, the better. Another example: a-g.webp
A little about RGB and CMYK
As a rule, all images of these formats have a color depth of 8 bits per channel (color). But in the image there can be several color channels. Then the RGB pattern with three channels will already have a depth of 24 bits (3x8). The color depth of CMYK images can be up to 32 bits (4x8).
A few more beats
Color depth - the number of shades of one color that the device in contact with images is able to reproduce or create. This parameter is responsible for the smoothness of the transition of shades in the images. All digital images are encoded with ones and zeros. Zero is black, one is white. They are stored and contained in memory, measured in bytes. One byte contains 8 bits, in which the color depth is indicated. For cameras, there is another definition - the color depth of the matrix. This is an indicator that determines how complete and deep images in terms of shades and colors are capable of producing a camera, or rather its matrix. A high value for this setting results in voluminous and smooth photos.
Permission
The link between color depth and image quality is its resolution. For example, a 32-bit image with a resolution of 800x600 will be significantly worse than a similar image with a resolution of 1440x900. Indeed, in the second case, a much larger number ofpixels. This is pretty easy to verify for yourself. All you need to do is go to your PC in the "picture settings" and try to consistently reduce or increase the screen resolution. During this process, you will clearly see how much the resolution affects the quality of the transmitted picture. No matter how many colors an image includes, it will be limited to the maximum that the monitor can support. As an example, take a monitor with a color depth of 16 bits and an image with 32 bits. This image on such a monitor will be displayed at a color depth of 16 bits.
