The number of colors or shades of gray that can be represented by a pixel. The smallest unit of data stored in a computer is called a bit. Dynamic range is a measurement of the number of bits used to represent each pixel in a digital image. 1 bit or bitonal means that a pixel can either be black or white. Bitonal imaging is good for black and Montana History Portal white images, such as line drawings and text. However, scanning in grayscale rather than bitonal may produce a better looking image. 8 bit color or 8 bit grayscale means that each pixel can be one of 256 shades of color or one of 256 shades of gray. 24 bit color means that each pixel can be one of 16.8 million colors. When moving to 48 bit color the available colors in the display will number 2800 times one trillion. This is an enormous number of colors. Plus a higher bit resolution can display more shades of gray. With 30 bit color depth, four times more gray can be represented in the display. Eight times more gray, or even higher, can be represented by a 36 or 48 color bit-depth display.
