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2. Basics of Image Processing

## 2.2 Picture Types

### 2.2.1 Basics

The user usually works with several picture types: bitmaps or monochrome pictures, gray pictures, RGB pictures, CMYK pictures and vector graphics.

Bitmaps, gray pictures, RGB pictures and CMYK pictures are called pixel or raster graphics. Every picture consists of little dots (called pixels), which are arranged in a raster like on a computer monitor. These four picture types differ considerable in the number of usable colors and the amount of needed memory.

Pixel images - with the exception of bitmaps, which always occupy 1 Bit per pixel - can have different color depths. Most common is a color depth of 8 Bit. This means that every channel of the image needs 8 Bit or 1 Byte. Some devices like scanners or digital cameras are able to create pictures with a higher color depth. Therefore PhotoLine is supporting a color depth of 16 Bit, 2 Bytes, per color channel, too.