Nonpalettes

Nonpalettes is a term used in digital art and computer graphics to describe images or graphics that are not constrained by a limited color palette. Traditionally, many early graphics systems and file formats employed fixed color palettes, meaning that the full range of colors available to an image was restricted to a specific set of hues chosen beforehand. This was often done to save memory or processing power.

In contrast, nonpaletted images, also known as direct color or true color images, utilize a much larger range of colors, often allowing for millions of distinct hues. This is typically achieved by assigning a specific numerical value to each pixel that directly represents its color, rather than referencing a color from a predefined list. The most common method for representing true color is through RGB (Red, Green, Blue) or RGBA (Red, Green, Blue, Alpha for transparency), where each color channel is allocated a certain number of bits to define its intensity.

The advent of more powerful hardware and widespread adoption of formats like JPEG and PNG has made nonpaletted images the standard for most digital photography and modern graphics. This allows for smoother gradients, more realistic color representation, and greater fidelity compared to images limited by a smaller palette. While palettes are still used in specific applications, such as certain web graphics or older file formats, the trend in digital art and display technology has overwhelmingly moved towards nonpaletted, high-color depth representations.