What is color depth?

Color depth, also called color number, refers to the number of colors in an image. It is used to represent the color resolution of digital cameras. For a digital camera with n bits for each color in the three color channels of red, green and blue, the total number of color bits is 3N, and the total number of distinguishable colors is 23N. For example, a 24-bit digital camera can get 2 colors, namely 16772 16 colors. The more color digits in a digital camera, the more details can be captured. Generally, 24-bit color number is enough for digital cameras, and 30-bit or 36-bit color depth is enough for digital cameras used in special industries such as advertising photography.

Color depth is the range of colors that the scanner can distinguish. At present, there are 18, 24, 30, 36, 42 and 48 bits. It should be said that the higher the number of color bits, the more potential the scanner has to improve the reduction of scanning effect. But is the higher the number of color bits, the better the scanning effect? That's not true. First of all, consider the source of color numbers. The number of color bits and the color reproduction effect of the scanner depend on the following aspects: the quality of photosensitive devices, the number of digital-to-analog converters, the quality of color correction technology and the number of color output bits of the scanner.