This meant that the image CLUT data had to be stored along with the raw image data in order to be able to re-produce the image correctly. Instead, they used a colour look-up table (CLUT) where each pixel's data pointed to an entry in the CLUT, and the CLUT was set up under program control. Generally, these systems worked identically to their less-colorful brethren, but a key difference was that there were too many colors in the palette to directly encode in the pixel data given the limited amount of video memory. In these cases it was common for the image to only allow a small subset of the total number of colors to be displayed at one time, up to 16 at once on the Atari and VT241. Examples include the 256-color palette on Atari 8-bit machines or the 4,096 colors of the VT241 terminal in ReGIS graphics mode. Other machines of this era had the ability to generate a larger set of colors, but generally only allowed a subset of those to be used in any one image. As the palettes were entirely proprietary, an image generated on one platform cannot be directly viewed properly on another.
For instance, the CGA's 320×200 resolution mode could show only four of the 16 colors at one time. In most cases, however, the display hardware supports additional modes where only a subset of those colors can be used in a single image, a useful technique to save memory. In these cases, an image can encode each pixel with 4-bits, directly selecting the color to use.
#GIMP COLOR PALETTE FROM IMAGE PC#
Well-known examples include the Apple II, Commodore 64 and IBM PC CGA, all of which included hardware that could produce a fixed set of 16 colors. In these cases, each pixel's value mapped directly onto one of these colors. Many early personal and home computers had very limited hardware palettes that could produce a very small set of colors. How the colors are encoded within the color palette map of a given indexed color image depends on the target platform. Here is a typical indexed 256-color image and its own palette (shown as a Human vision to blur nearby pixels together, giving a result visually Mixes different-colored pixels in patterns, exploiting the tendency of In those cases, it is usual to employ dithering, which Gradients will appear blocky or as strips ( colorīanding). The image accurately difficult-to-reproduce features such as Such a palette is frequently insufficient to represent
Limited repertoire of colors to approximate the image usingĬolor quantization. If an image has many subtle color shades, it is necessary to select a Use indexed 16 bpp or more does not provide the benefits of the indexedĬolor images' nature, due to the color palette size in bytes being Practical limit is around 12-bit per pixel, 4,096 different indices. Indexed color images with palette sizes beyond 256 entries are rare. Series, had the transparent color reserved by Palette entry is specifically reserved for this purpose, and it isĭiscounted as an available color. If simple video overlay is intended through a Images are considered binary images (sometimes referred as aīitmap or bilevel image) and not an indexed color image. Used, and then up to eight pixels can be packed into a single byte such (two nibbles per byte, if 16 colors are employed, or four 2-bit pixels Nibble) or fewer colors can be packed together into a single byte Pixel also occupies a single byte), pixel indices with 16 (4-bit, a Target architecture's display adapter hardware, so it is not a coincidence that those numbers areīe fit into a single 8- bit byte (and then a single indexed color The palette itself stores a limited number of distinct colors 4, 16 orĢ56 are the most common cases.