The computer monitor - sometimes an element of confusion
A computer monitor is a device that emits light in
red, green and blue colors at a variety of intensities. The total
permutations of these colors in their varied intensities is the
measure of the monitor's color depth. Measured in bits,
color depth is a number which describes the power
to which the number 2 is raised. So, 28 is 2 to the 8th power,
or 256. Eight-bit color describes a total color palette of 256
colors, which is inadequate for excellent viewing of a color
image.
More bit depth allows the user to address more colors
and more subtlety in the display of images on the monitor though
you may not be able to see these subtleties. High-quality displays
have a bit depth of 224 which is called 24-bit color. This
color depth is 3 x 28 - or :;!8 + 28 + 28 which represents
16,-/11,216 total colors in the palette of colors
displayable on the monitor - adequate for even the highest-quality
image manipulation.
However, monitor color depth is not an important factor in the
conversion of color - it relates only to the display
of color. If the image is not displayed correctly, subtle
color viewing and corrections are impossible, but the conversion
of color spaces is still possible with excellent quality. People
often misinterpret the relationship between the stored file,
the viewing of that file, and the conversion of
the file into printable color.
The image that is viewed on that RGB monitor
may in fact be stored in YCC, RGB, CMYK, CIELAB, or some
other color space. In order to get the image printed on a printing
press, the color must be converted to cyan, yellow,
magenta and black through a color separation process. We will
examine a variety of these processes in this next section.
