bit per pixel
Information unit
| Name | Symbol | Quantity | SI units |
| bit per pixel | bit/px | colour depth | |
| The bit per pixel, symbol bit/px, is the unit of digital colour depth. | ![]() |
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Colour depth
The number of distinct colours that can be represented by a single pixel is proportional to 2 to the power of the value of the colour depth in bits per pixel.
Examples of colour depth
| colour depth (bits per pixel) |
colours |
colours (hexadecimal) |
colours (decimal) |
| 1 | 21 | 216 | 2 |
| 2 | 22 | 416 | 4 |
| 4 | 24 | 1016 | 16 |
| 8 | 28 | 10016 | 256 |
| 15 | 215 | 800016 | 32 768 |
| 16 | 216 | 1 000016 | 65 536 |
| 24 | 224 | 100 000016 | 16 777 216 |


