Color Mode Excercise

 

RGB color mode:

# of colors: 16.7 million

Uncompressed file size: 900kb

This has all three channels active therefore the the file size is bigger.

 Indexed Color Mode:

# of colors: 5

Uncompressed file size: 300kb

The file size is much smaller as its using only 5 colors, out of one channel, instead of the full 16.7 million.

Greyscale Color Mode:

# of colors: 256

Uncompressed file size: 300kb

Since this also only uses one channel its file size is also smaller than the RGB color mode.

Bitmap Color Mode:

# of colors: 2

Uncompressed file size: 37.5kb

This file size is the smallest because Bitmap Color mode only uses two colors, black and white. No other colors.

Color Modes

Can you change File Format just by changing it's name?

No you cannot, it will simply confuse the computer and will be unable to open. It's file format remains the same.

How many colors are in the following Color Modes?

• RGB:  

  16.7 million colors

• INDEXED COLOR:

  256 colors or less 

• GREYSCALE

  256 colors

• BITMAP

  2 colors
  

What happens to the (uncompressed) File Size as you change Color Modes?

The amount of data changes. For example, moving an image from RGB color mode into Greyscale reduces file size.

What happens to the visual quality of image as you Reduce the number of colors by changing the color mode?

Visual quality goes down.

What is a good reason to convert PSD files to JPG?

To deliver the image.