Understanding color depth
Color depth, also called bit depth, refers to the number of colors each pixel in an image can display. As the color depth increases, the number of colors an image can display increases. Each pixel’s color information is stored in a certain number of computer bits — from 1 bit to 48 bits. In a 1-bit image, each pixel can display only one of two colors — black or white. In images with greater bit depth, each pixel can display one of an increasingly large number of colors. High-end digital camera photos saved in the camera’s RAW format contain the most colors, but they also require more hard drive space, and more system memory to display and work on them.
In Corel PaintShop Pro, you can use the following color depths:
• 2 colors
• 16 colors
• 256 colors
• 8-bit per channel RGB
• 8-bit per channel Grey
• 16-bit per channel RGB
• 16-bit per channel Grey
Before you change the color depth of your image, consider the following:
• Many effect and correction commands work on higher color depth images only. After you finish working on an image, you can decrease its color depth and save it in another format.
• Computer monitors also have a color depth that is determined by the monitor’s capabilities as well as the selected color setting. If you display an image with a higher color depth than the monitor can display, the image has some color distortion.
• Some file formats limit the number of supported colors so that images display correctly on a variety of monitor types. For example, GIF images, a popular format for the Web, contain up to 256 colors (8-bit depth).