Each pixel in the image is represented by 1 bit and so 8 bits are required for each row.There are 8 rows and so 64 bits are required in total. 64 Bits / 8 = 8 Bytes.

If more colour options are required, this will take up additional storage. For example, if each pixel has 4 colour options, then 2 bits would be required (00,01,10,11) for each pixel. In the image above 128 bits would be required. 128 Bits / 8 = 16 Bytes.

If 256 colour options were required, 8 bits would be needed for each pixel (00000000 – 11111111 provides 256 options (numbers 0 – 255)). Therefore 1 byte is required for each pixel, and 64 bytes in total.

Click here to learn more about how images are represented by binary digits.

Common Questions

Q. What is colour depth?

A. Colour depth (or bit depth) is the amount of bits required to represented a pixel in an image. The more possible colours, the more bits that will be required and the more realistic the image would be.

Q. How many Bits/Bytes does it take to represent an pixel that can contain 256 different colours.

A. 8 Bits/ 1 Byte can represent 256 different options (eg. numbers 0-255) . Therefore 8 Bits or 1 Byte would be required to represent 256 colour choices.

Q. What is metadata?

A. Metadata is data about data. It is additional data that tells you information about the file such as the height, width and colour depth. Photos taken on your phone usually contain lots of metadata including where and when it was taken.