Bits per Pixel

What are Bits per Pixel?

Bits per pixel refers to the amount of bits (1's and 0's) necessary to store the color data of a single pixel in a digital image. It's abbreviated bpp. Common values include 1 bpp, 8 bpp, 24 bpp, and 32 bpp. The latter two are because most images have 8 bits per pixel per color channel, so a RGB image, which has 3 channels, has 3 times 8 bpp = 24 bpp, while RGBA, which has 4 channels, has 32 bpp. Images with 16 bits or 32 bits per channel would have twice as much bpp. The term normally refers to uncompressed pixel data—compressed pixel data can have fractional bpp, e.g. 27.3 bpp, because it takes less bits to store the same pixel data.