Simplicable Guide

14 Examples of Color Depth

John Spacey, July 27, 2020

Color depth is the amount of data in bits that is used to represent a pixel of color by a technology such as a camera, photo editor or screen. For example, a 4k television has around 8.3 million pixels and typically uses 24-bits to represent the color of each pixel. Generally speaking, the more bits that are used, the more colors that can be displayed by a technology. The following are common types of color depth both current and historical.

Number of Colors	Color Depth	Notes
2	1-bit	Black and white with no grey.
4	2-bit	Usually black + white + light grey + dark grey.
8	3-bit	First primitive color displays.
16	4-bit	Known as EGA historically used by PC, Macintosh, Commodore 64 and Atari.
32	5-bit	Used by Commodore Amiga between 1985 and 1990.
256	8-bit	Known as VGA or Super VGA very common between 1988 and 2000.
4,096	12-bit	Used by old high-end systems such as Silicon Graphics and NeXTstation
32,768	15-bit+1	Known as High Color. Used 16-bits with one bit for transparency. Historically used by Macintosh.
65,536	16-bit	Sixteen bit color without transparency.
262,144	18-bit	Used by cheaper models of LCDs that use dithering to approximate 24-bit color.
16,777,216	24-bit	Known as True Color. Usually 8-bits each for red, green and blue using a RGB color space. Used by virtually all current high-end screens including monitors, TVs and mobile devices.
1.07 Billion	30-bit	Known as Deep Color. Widely supported by standards with increasing adoption by manufacturers.
4.29 Billion	32-bit	Currently not common.
281.5 Trillion	48-bit	Used internally by cameras and photo processing tools to handle raw data that reaches this level of accuracy.

Does It Matter?

Humans can distinguish between as few as 10 million colors such that 24-bit true color at over 16 million colors is commonly perceived as completely colorful. However, these 16 million colors don't map exactly to the colors that humans can see such that increasing color depth beyond true color is noticeable.

Most current technologies are based on RGB that only uses three primary colors: red, green and blue. This doesn't map to all real world colors. For example, the spectral color violet is simulated with purple such that true violet can't be displayed with RGB. Manufacturers have experimented with adding up to three new primaries: cyan, magenta and yellow that greatly increase the number of colors that can be theoretically displayed. This may justify greater color depths than 24-bit. For example, six primary colors at 8-bits each would represent a 48-bit color depth supporting 281.5 trillion colors. It is likely humans could perceive the difference when this is applied to the millions of pixels in a display with media that was recorded in the same color space.

Overview: Color Depth
Type	Color Space
Definition	The amount of data in bits that is used to represent a pixel of color by a technology.
Related Concepts	Color Space » Pixel » Primary Colors » Spectral Color » Violet »