24-bit

Definition: Adjective: (1) ~ application: written to run on computers using 24-bit operating system e.g. Windows 3.1. (2) ~ colour, ~ sound: coding, bit-depth, monitor or video- or sound-card capable of resolving up to 16,777,216 different colours or levels or frequencies. * Often loosely abbreviated to 16.7 million colours. * Also called truecolour or trucolor. (3) ~ operating system, ~ machine: one that works with data or word length that is 24 bits or 3 bytes long, giving 224 = 16,777,216 variations or different words.
Where 24 means 8, or is it the other way around?
24-bit colour is the standard bit-depth for digital photography. This is because digital photography uses three channels - red, green and blue - and each is coded to a bit-depth of 8 bits. Confusingly, some people will talk about 8-bit colour, when they mean 8-bit per channel. But some will talk about 32-bit colour using 8-bit channels. How can that be? It's because they are referring to CMYK colour images - four channels of 8-bit equals 32-bit. The rage now is for cameras to pump out 12-bit and even 14-bit colour per channel.

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