8-bit Colors
The OG colors of computing
8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer’s memory or in an image file, so that each single pixel is represented by 8-bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 2⁸.
Because of the low amount of memory and resultant higher speeds of 8-bit color images, 8-bit color was a common ground among computer graphics development until more memory and higher CPU speeds became readily available to consumers. 8-bit color was used in many different applications back in the day.
Today, most graphics hardware runs in 24-bit Truecolor or 32-bit Truecolor (24-bit Truecolor with an 8-bit alpha channel for transparency). However, some remote desktop software (Virtual Network Computing, Remote Desktop Protocol) can switch to 8-bit color to conserve bandwidth. With the comparative low cost and high speeds of modern computers, some image editing is even done in a raw format with anywhere from 12 to 14 bits from each of the camera’s image sensor pixels in order to avoid image quality reduction while editing.
256 color is much more imaginable than 16 million, and because of their low information requirements, they are special and rare! Check and see if some are still available on colorverse.io !
See the available 256 8-bit Colors here:
