RGB stands for Red Green Blue and represents the basic three colors in the universe. All of the remaining colors are a combination of these three colors. The human mind is unable to even comprehend the number of combinations that can be formed with slight changes in the intensities of each color when combining them to form a new one. The combinations of close to 10 million unique colors can be formulated that the human eye can distinctly identify.
Colors are basically different wavelengths of light. Sir Isaac Newton discovered the phenomenon that colors are not inherent property of object but seen upon interaction of light with the object. Once a light wave strikes an object it can do either of the following:
- Reflect 100% spectrum of light (White Color)
- Reflect partial frequencies of light (All the remaining colors)
- Reflect nothing (Black Color)
Colors are represented digitally in form of 3 bytes with 1 byte representation for each of the basic colors Red, Green and Blue as following
- 1 Byte = 8 x Bits
- Total combinations = 2^8 = 256 (from 0 to 255)
Each pixel (smallest illuminating unit representing a single color) is represented as following:
- RGB Value = (Red, Green, Blue)
- Binary Values = (00000000-11111111, 00000000-11111111, 00000000-11111111)
- Decimal Values = (0-255,0-255,0-255)
For example RGB Values for black and white are on extremes of these ranges and all remaining colors fall in between these ranges
- Black Color = (0,0,0)
- White Color = (255,255,255)
Each one of our three basic colors Red, Green and Blue are represented when other two are set to zero in their RGB Pixel Value
Red = (255,0,0)
Green = (0, 255, 0)
Blue = (0, 0, 255)
These were smallest illuminating unit that we know as pixels which combine to form an image that will have a resolution. We will explore resolution in upcoming blogs.