CompuServe Messages

Don, you're right: that's the reason why we need 18 to 24 bits. Mention 16 million colors to most people and they'll take you for a megalomaniac, and an ambitious one at that. B^D But, once you consider that it boils down to 256 shades of red/green/blue, you realize that in order to have smooth graduated backgrounds, you do need that many colors. With 64 shades of each primary color, people will be able to see bands in a supposedly smooth grey scale. (This is why I like having the dithered pseudo-24-bit option in HAM-E) You need 128 or 256 shades to have true smoothness, and computers being the way they are, it's basically as easy to give the user 8 bits/color as 7 bits, so we end up with 256 shades of red/green/blue and 16 million colors. Blaq! – via Whap!