(n.) The number of distinct colors that can be represented by a piece of
hardware or
software. Color depth is sometimes referred to as
bit depth because it is directly related to the number of
bits used for each
pixel. A 24-bit
video adapter, for example, has a color depth of 2 to the 24th power (about 16.7 million) colors. One would say that its color depth is 24 bits.
Color depth is also referred to as bits per pixel (bpp).
