When there are 8 switches then there are 256 different possible combinations

What is RGB?
There are 2 options for each switch- ON and OFF
2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2

2 ON
ON

This is a graphical representation ofBLACK

a BIT.
ON

OFF
Imagine ON is White and OFF is
OFF
OFF

There will be 256 shades of grey

ON ON
A bit has 2 states, in this example these are
ON

‘ON & OFF’ but could be ‘1 & 0’

ON

OFF

OFF
OFF
When all the switches are ON we have Total White
White = 255
ON
ON

When all the switches are OFF we have Total Black

OFF OFF
OFF Black = 0 In this example, we are looking at an 8-bit image..

8 BITS make a BITE

RGB RGB Colour Mode facts:

When there are 24 switches there are 16,777,216 different combinations
Greyscale To form a colour with RGB three
coloured light beams are needed.
ere are 8 switches2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x
then there are 256 different possible combinations Each of the three beams is called a
2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x
component of that colour.

RGB is an Additive colour model, this

2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2
ON
ON
ON
ON
ON
ON
is where colour is made by emitting
light from a source.
ON ON ON

OFF OFF OFF

OFF OFF OFF

OFF OFF OFF

Additive Primary colours:

ON
ON
ON

OFF ON
ON
Imagine ON is White and OFF is BLACK ON
ON

ON
ON

ON
RED
GREEN
ON ON
OFF
OFF

There will be 256 shades of grey

BLUE
OFF OFF OFF

OFF OFF OFF

OFF OFF OFF
ON

ON
ON

OFF ON
ON
ON
ON ON
ON Additive Secondary colours:
OFF
OFF
When all the switches are ON we have Total White CYAN
OFF
White = 255
OFF
OFF
OFF OFF
OFF
MAGENTA
ON
ON
YELLOW
When all the switches are OFF we have Total Black
Black = 0
These Secondary colours are created
OFF
OFF

when you use two of the Primary

colours at 100%.

If all three colours at 100% this creates
RGB ALPHA WHITE.

e are 24 switches there are 16,777,216 different combinations If all the components are set to zero
When there are 8 switches then there are 256 different possible combinations then this will create BLACK.

2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x If all the components are set to the
2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 SAME value, this will create BLACK
(0,0,0) WHITE (255, 255, 255) or GREY
ON ON
(any value between 0 and 255).
ON ON
ON ON ON
ON
ON

OFF
OFF
OFF Now imagine ON is Solid and OFF is Transparent
OFF
OFF OFF OFF
OFF
OFF
There will be 256 levels of transparency
ON ON

ON ON
ON ON ON

ON
ON

OFF OFF

OFF OFF
OFF OFF OFF

OFF
OFF

ON ON
ON ON

ON
ON

OFF OFF
OFF OFF

OFF
OFF
What is an ALPHA
Alpha channel?
When there are 8 switches then there are 256 different possible combinations

2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2

The information in a Alpha

ON
Channel represents a
valueONofistransparency.
ON
ON

Now imagine Solid and OFF is Transparent

OFF
OFF
OFF
There will be 256 levels of transparency
ON

ON
ON

OFF
Alpha Channel Facts:
OFF
OFF

The Alpha Channel is often considered to be the fourth component of the RGB colour
ON
ON mode (RGBA)

OFF
OFF
The Alpha channel also has a value between 0 and 255 but this refers to it’s transpar-
ency
0 (black)= Transparent areas
255 (white)= Opaque areas

ALPHA...

Layered .psd files can contain Alpha channels

shown here by the chequer-board

Other file formats which support Alpha

(such as TIFF) can be set by adding an extra
channel in Photoshop...

...Here I have added the channel by trans-

forming a selection in to a channel.

REMEMBER:
Black = 0 (0% Opacity)
White= 255 (100% Opacity)
What file formats support Alpha?
PSD: Photoshop format is Photoshop’s default file format. This format is the only
format that supports all of Photoshop’s features.

PNG: The Portable Network Graphics format provides lossless compression.

The PNG supports 24-bit images and with 8-bit Alpha transparency. Originally
designed to replace GIF (and to some extent, TIFF), PNG is the only truecolor,
lossless image format that is both cross-platform and application independent —
meaning that, unlike TIFF, any supporting application will be able to read a PNG
created by another application.

JPEG: The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format is used to display
continuous-tone images (such as photos) on the World Wide Web. Most digital
cameras use JPEG. The JPEG format supports RGB, CMYK, and Grayscale
colour modes, but does not support alpha channels. JPEG is a lossy
compression and should not be used as a storage or production file
format. If you are using it as a source format, be sure to set the digital camera to
Maximum quality.

PDF: The Portable Document Format is a cross-platform, cross-application file

format. PDF files accurately display and preserve fonts, page layouts, and both
vector and bitmap graphics. This is an excellent format for review purposes,
but will not be understood by all video-editing applications.

PICT: The Macintosh Picture format is widely used by Video Editors. Its
popularity can be traced back to many editing packages, which historically
required graphics to be in the PICT format. Its popularity has suffered as other
options became available. With the change to Mac OS X, PICT was dropped in
favour of Portable Document Format (PDF) as the native metafile format, though
PICT support is retained by many applications as it is so widely supported on the
Mac

TGA: The Targa format was designed for systems using Truevision video
boards. It has become a standard format for PC users because it supports 24-bit
RGB images (8 bits x 3 colour channels), and 32-bit RGB images (3 colour
channels plus an alpha channel).

TIF or TIFF: The Tagged-Image File Format is a common cross platform format
that is supported by several applications. Several scanners can create TIFF files
as well, and it is a more efficient format for saving non-layered images. The TIFF
format supports RGB, CMYK, Lab, indexed-color, and grayscale images with
alpha channels. Photoshop can also save layers in a TIFF file; however, other
applications only see the flattened.

BMP: Microsoft Paint’s BMP is a standard Windows image format on DOS and
Windows computers. The BMP format supports RGB, Indexed Colour, Grayscale,
and Bitmap colour modes. The BMP format supports several lower quality modes
and is most used by video game developers. This format is not very useful for
video editing.
What file formats support Alpha?

GIF: online service provider CompuServe originally developed The Graphics

Interchange Format (GIF). This format displays 8-bit or indexed-color graphics
and images in HTML documents on the Internet. Instead of the alpha channel in a GIF
image containing degrees of transparency it only has an on/off transparency. This means
that pixels within a GIF image can either be fully opaque or fully transparent. There is no
in between. Because of its small colour range and compressed images, this format is not
very useful for video editing.

EPS: The Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) language file format can contain both
bitmap and vector graphics in RGB, Lab, CMYK, Indexed Colour, Duotone,
Grayscale, and Bitmap colour modes. It is a widely supported format in the print
world. There are no advantages to the EPS format for video applications.

Filmstrip: The Filmstrip format is used for movie files created by Adobe
Premiere. Every frame of video is saved to one file, which you can open in
Photoshop for Rotoscoping. This generally does not produce smooth results,
as you lack the ability to keyframe or ’tween items. If you change resolution,
delete alpha channels, or alter the colour mode, you won’t be able to save it back
to Filmstrip format.

PXR: The Pixar format is designed for high-end 3-D applications. It supports
RGB and grayscale images with a single alpha channel. If you also create 3-D
animation, you may use this format.

RAW: The Raw format is a flexible (and confusing) file format for transferring
between applications and computer platforms. Essentially, a text file is written
containing a stream of bytes describing the colour information for the image. Every
pixel is described in binary format.

CT: The Scitex Continuous Tone format is used for high-end print work on Scitex
computers. This format needs special scanners and rasterizing formats, and is
designed for output of high-quality print such as magazines and art prints. You
will never need to save in it for video output.