List of monochrome and RGB palettes
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- For a full listing of computer's color palettes, see List of palettes
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This list of monochrome and RGB palettes includes generic repertoires of colors (color palettes) to produce black-and-white and RGB color pictures by the computer's display hardware, not necessarily the total number of such colors that can be simultaneously displayed in a given text or graphic mode of any machine. RGB is the most common method to produce colors for displays; so these complete RGB color repertoires have every possible combination of R-G-B triplets within any given maximum number of levels per component.
For specific hardware and different methods to produce colors other than RGB, see the List of 8-bit computer hardware palettes, the List of 16-bit computer hardware palettes and the List of videogame consoles palettes. For various software arrangements and sorts of colors, including other possible full RGB arrangements within 8-bit color depth displays, see the List of software palettes.
Each palette is represented by a series of color patches. When the number of colors is low, a 1-pixel-size version of the palette appears below it, for easily comparing relative palette sizes. Huge palettes are given directly in one-color-per-pixel color patches.
For each unique palette, an image color test chart and sample image (truecolor original follows) rendered with that palette (without dithering) are given. The test chart shows the full 256 levels of the red, green, and blue (RGB) primary colors and cyan, magenta, and yellow complementary colors, along with a full 256-level grayscale. Gradients of RGB intermediate colors (orange, lime green, sea green, sky blue, violet, and fuchsia), and a full hue spectrum are also present. Color charts are not gamma corrected.
These elements illustrate the color depth and distribution of the colors of any given palette, and the sample image indicates how the color selection of such palettes could represent real-life images. These images are not necessarily representative of how the image would be displayed on the original graphics hardware, as the hardware may have additional limitations regarding the maximum display resolution, pixel aspect ratio and color placement. For simulated sample images for notable computers, see the List of 8-bit computer hardware palettes and List of 16-bit computer hardware palettes articles.
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[edit] Monochrome palettes
These palettes only have some shades of gray, from black to white, both considered the most possible darker and lighter "grays", respectively. The general rule is that those palettes have the following number of grays: 2 raised to the power of the number of bits needed to represent a single pixel.
[edit] Monochrome (1-bit)
Monochrome graphics displays typically have a black background with a white or light grey image, though green or amber was also common. Such a palette requires only one bit per pixel.
In some systems, as Hercules and CGA graphic cards for the IBM PC, a bit value of 1 represents white pixels (light on) and a value of 0 the black ones (light off); others, like the Atari ST and Apple Macintosh with monochrome monitors, a bit value of 0 means a white pixel (no ink) and a value of 1 means a black pixel (dot of ink), which it approximates to the printing logic.
Bit planes employed in planar arranged images and bit masks used to specify transparent areas (for example, with icons) also use (conceptually) this palette.
The following images illustrates simulations of the image seen over green, amber and creme phosphor CRT monitors, non-backlighted green LCD and backlighted blue LCD displays:
[edit] 2-bit Grayscale
In a 2-bit color palette each pixel's value is represented by 2 bits resulting in a 4-value palette (22 = 4). It has black, white and two intermediate levels of gray as follows:
A monochrome 2-bit palette is used on:
- NeXTcube and NeXTstation monochrome graphic displays.
- Original Game Boy system portable videogame console.
- Macintosh PowerBook 150 monochrome LCD displays.
[edit] 4-bit Grayscale
In a 4-bit color palette each pixel's value is represented by 4 bits resulting in a 16-value palette (24 = 16) as follows:
A monochrome 4-bit palette is used on:
- MOS Technology VDC (on the Commodore 128 with monochrome monitor)
[edit] 8-bit Grayscale
In a 8-bit color palette each pixel's value is represented by 8 bits resulting in a 256-value palette (28 = 256). This is usually the maximum number of grays in ordinary monochrome systems; each image pixel occupies a single memory byte.
Most scanners can capture images in 8-bit grayscale, and image file formats like TIFF and JPEG natively support this monochrome palette size.
Alpha channels employed for video overlay also use (conceptually) this palette. The gray level indicates the opacity of the blended image pixel over the background image pixel.
[edit] Regular RGB palettes
Here are grouped those full RGB hardware palettes that have the same number of binary levels (i.e., the same number of bits) for every red, green and blue components using the full RGB color model. Thus, the total number of colors are always the number of possible levels by component, n, raised to a power of 3: n×n×n = n3.
[edit] 3-bit RGB
Systems with a 3-bit RGB palette use 1 bit for each of the red, green and blue color components. That is, each component is either "on" or "off" with no intermediate states. This results in an 8-color palette (23 = 8) that have black, white, the three RGB primary colors red, blue and green and their correspondent complementary colors cyan, magenta and yellow as follows:
The color indices vary between implementations; therefore, index numbers are not given.
The 3-bit RGB palette is used by:
- The ECMA-48 standard for text terminals (sometimes known as the "ANSI standard", although ANSI X3.64 does not define colors)
- Teletext standards since 1976
- Videotex
- TRS-80 Color Computer
- Oric
[edit] 6-bit RGB
Systems with a 6-bit RGB palette use 2 bits for each of the red, green, and blue color components. This results in a 43 = 64-color palette as follows:
6-bit RGB systems include the following:
[edit] 9-bit RGB
Systems with a 9-bit RGB palette use 3 bits for each of the red, green, and blue color components. This results in a 83 = 512-color palette as follows:
9-bit RGB systems include the following:
[edit] 12-bit RGB
Systems with a 12-bit RGB palette use 4 bits for each of the red, green, and blue color components. This results in a 163 = 4096-color palette as follows:
12-bit RGB systems include the following:
- Original Amiga chipset (OCS)
- Apple IIgs Video Graphics Chip
- The video hardware of Atari STe
[edit] 15-bit RGB
Systems with a 15-bit RGB palette use 5 bits for each of the red, green, and blue color components. This results in a 323 = 32,768-color palette (commonly known as Highcolor) as follows:
15-bit systems include:
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Sony Playstation
- Truevision TARGA and AT-Vista graphic cards for IBM PC-AT and compatibles, and NU-Vista for Apple Macintosh
- Later models of Super VGA (SVGA) IBM PC compatible graphic cards
- Nintendo Game Boy Color/Advance/SP/Micro pocket videoconsoles
[edit] 18-bit RGB
Systems with an 18-bit RGB palette use 6 bits for each of the red, green, and blue color components. This results in a 643 = 262,144-color palette as follows:
18-bit RGB systems include the following:
- Video Graphics Array (VGA) for IBM PS/2 and IBM PC compatibles
[edit] 24-bit RGB
Often known as truecolor and millions of colors, 24-bit color is the highest color depth normally used, and is available on most modern display systems and software. Its color palette contains 2563 = 16,777,216 colors.
The complete palette needs a squared image of 4,096 pixels wide (50MB in memory), and there is not enough room in this page to show it at full.
You must to imagine 256 stacked squares like the following, every of them having the same given value for the red component, from 0 to 255.
The color transitions in these patches must be seen as continuous. If you see color stepping (banding) inside, then probably your display is using a Highcolor (15- or 16- bits RGB, 32,768 or 65,536 colors) mode or lesser.
This is also the number of colors used in true color image files, like Truevision TGA, TIFF, JPEG (the last internally encoded as YCbCr) and Windows Bitmap, captured with scanners and digital cameras, as well as those created with 3D computer graphics software.
24-bit RGB systems include:
- Amiga Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) (although it can only display 262,144 colours at once)
- Later models of Super VGA (SVGA) IBM PC compatible graphic cards
- Truevision AT-Vista graphic cards for IBM PC-AT and compatibles, and NU-Vista for Apple Macintosh.
[edit] Non-regular RGB palettes
These also are full RGB palette repertories, but either they do not have the same number of levels for every red, green and blue components, nor are bit levels based. Nevertheless, all of them are used in very popular personal computers.
For further details on color palettes for these systems, see the article List of 8-bit computer hardware palettes.
[edit] 4-bit RGBI
The 4-bit RGBI palette is similar to the 3-bit RGB palette but adds one bit for intensity. This results in each of the colors of the 3-bit palette to have a dark and bright variant giving a total of 23×2 = 16 colors.
This 4-bits RGBI schema is used in several platforms with variations, so the table given below is a simple reference for the palette richness, and not an actual implemented palette. For this reason, no numbers are assigned to each color, and color order is arbitrary.
The 4-bits RGBI palettes are used by:
- Color Graphics Adapter (on the IBM PC and compatibles)
- EGA, VGA and Microsoft Windows as their default 16-color CGA-compatible palette.
- MOS Technology VDC (on the Commodore 128)
- ZX Spectrum
[edit] 3-level RGB
The 3-level (not bits) RGB uses three level for every red, green and blue color components, resulting in a 33 = 27 colors palette as follows:
This palette is used by the Amstrad CPC 464 series of personal computers.
[edit] 3-3-2 bit RGB
The 3-3-2 bit RGB use 3 bits for each of the red and green color components, and 2 bits for the blue component, due to the lesser sensibility of the normal human eye to this primary color. This results in a 8×8×4 = 256-color palette as follows:
This palette is used by the MSX2 series of personal computers.
[edit] 16-bit RGB
Most modern systems support 16-bit color. It is sometimes referred to as Highcolor (along with the 15-bit RGB), medium color or thousands of colors. It utilizes a color palette of 32×64×32 = 65,536 colors. Usually, there are 5 bits allocated for the red and blue color components (32 levels each) and 6 bits for the green component (64 levels), due to the greater sensibility of the normal human eye to this primary color. This doubles the 15-bit RGB palette.
The 16-bit RGB palette using 6 bits for the green component:
The Extended Graphics Array (XGA) for IBM PS/2 also uses the 16-bit RGB palette.
It must be noticed that not all systems using 16-bit color depth employ the 16-bit, 32-64-32 level RGB palette. Platforms like Sharp X68000 or the Neo Geo videogame console employs the 15-bit RGB palette (5 bits are used for red, green, and blue), but the last bit specifies a less significant intensity or luminance. The 16-bit mode of the Truevision TARGA/AT-Vista/NU-Vista graphic cards and its associated TGA file format also uses 15-bit RGB, but it devotes its remaining bit as a simple alpha channel for video overlay.
[edit] See also
- Palette (computing)
- Indexed color
- Color Lookup Table
- Color depth
- Computer display
- List of home computers by video hardware
- Bitmap
- Grayscale
- RGB
[edit] External links and sources
- HTML Color Codes Dynamic color palette with HTML color codes information