Which color depth allows for 16 million colors?

The answer is accurate because 24-bit color depth is specifically designed to accommodate a wide range of colors, totaling approximately 16.7 million distinct colors. This is achieved through the use of three primary color channels: red, green, and blue (RGB). Each channel is represented by 8 bits, allowing for 256 different intensity levels per channel (2^8 = 256). When combined across the three channels, the formula for calculating the total number of colors is 256 (red) x 256 (green) x 256 (blue), resulting in 16,777,216 possible colors, which is commonly rounded to about 16 million for simplicity.

In contrast, an 8-bit color depth can represent only 256 colors, as it has only one channel, while 16-bit color depth can typically represent 65,536 colors due to its combination of 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, and 5 bits for blue. A 32-bit color depth often includes an additional 8 bits for an alpha channel that handles transparency, which can also include a full 24-bit color representation but extends the capabilities beyond just color representation. Therefore, the option indicating 24-bit successfully matches the requirement for