More About Indexed Color: Bit-Depths
An indexed image with a lower bit-depth
will have a smaller palette,
fewer colors, and a smaller file size.
| Bit depth | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of colors | 256 | 16 | 4 | 2 |
| File size | 5.532 Kb | 1.769 Kb | 0.733 Kb | 0.408 Kb |
| Indexed image |  |
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| Palette |  |
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Note that the number of colors always equals 2n,
where n is the bit-depth.
At lower bit-depths, image quality may be enhanced through dithering.