On Sat, 05 Jan 2002 16:37:06 -0500, Steve Wark wrote: > Bit depth is the number of bits used to describe the color of a pixel... So > 4-bit gives you 16 possible colors for the pixel, 8-bit is 256 color, etc...
Be aware that some people will "name" the same color depth differently. For example, "True Color" generally refers to representation with twenty-four total bits of color information, eight bits each for red, green, and blue. Some people call "True Color" 24-bit color and others call it 8-bit color. > Dynamic Range is beyond a simple answer from me, and seems to mean > different things to different people... In scanner adds, it appears to be > a calculation based on the number of useful bits/inch the scanner can > actually read in hardware... In scanner ads, what they appear to be reporting is the difference between the darkest adjacent pixel colors that can be discerned and the lightest adjacent pixel colors that can be discerned. This is very similar to measuring the smallest-discernable film density differences at the light (high-density in a neg) and dark (low-density in a neg) ends of the exposure scale. Also remember that the bit depth and dynamic range are quoted on the RGB color space of the scanner. If the scanned image is converted to another color space, the bit depth and dynamic range can change. TTYL, DougF - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
