Indexed color

Technique to manage digital images' colors in a limited fashion A 2-bit indexed color image. The color of each pixel is represented by a number; each number (the index) corresponds to a color in the color table (the palette). Color depth 1-bit monochrome 8-bit grayscale 8-bit color 15- or 16-bit color (high color) 24-bit color (true color) 30-, 36-, or 48-bit color (deep color) Related Indexed color Palette RGB color model Web-safe color vte In computing, indexed color is a technique to manage digital images' colors in a limited fashion, in order to save computer storage, while speeding up display refresh and file transfers. It is a form of vector quantization compression. When an image is encoded in this way, color information is not directly carried by the image pixel data, but is stored in a separate piece of data called a color lookup table (CLUT) or palette: an array of color specifications. Every element in the array represents a color, indexed by its position within the array. For color information, each image pixel then specifies only its index into the palette. This technique is sometimes referred as pseudocolor or indirect color, as colors are addressed indirectly. Histor