Today, technologies and devices make it possible to make such a bright and rich image 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 shades of color that an image can contain. This number is measured in bits (the number of binary bits that determine the color of each pixel and hue in a bitmap graphic ). For example, one pixel, the color depth of which is 1 bit, can take two values: white and black. And the greater the depth of color will be, the more diverse will be the image, which includes many colors and shades. She is also responsible for the accuracy of image transmission. Everything is similar here: the higher, the better. Another example: a GIF image with a color depth of 8 bits will contain 256 colors, while a JPEG image with a depth of 24 bits will include 16 million colors.
A bit about RGB and CMYK
As a rule, all images of these formats have a color depth of 8 bits per channel (color). But the image may contain several color channels. Then already an RGB picture with three channels will have a depth of 24 bits (3x8). The color depth of CMYK images can reach 32 bits (4x8).
Some more bits
Color Depth - the number of shades of one color that a device in contact with images can reproduce or create. This parameter is responsible for the smooth transition of shades in images. All digital images are encoded using ones and zeros. Zero is black, unit is white. They are stored and kept 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 full and deep images in terms of shades and colors the camera can produce, or rather its matrix. Due to the high value of this parameter, the photos are voluminous and smooth.
Resolution
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 the analogous one with 1440x900. Indeed, in the second case, a much larger number of pixels is involved. This is pretty easy to verify on your own. All you need to do is go to the "image settings" on your PC and try to consistently decrease or increase the screen resolution. During this process, you will clearly see how much resolution affects the quality of the transmitted image. No matter how many colors a particular image includes, it will be limited by the maximum value that the monitor can support. An example is a monitor with a color depth of 16 bits and an image with 32 bits. This image on such a monitor will be displayed with a color depth of 16 bits.