Certified Professional Photographer (CPP) Practice Exam

Increasing the bit depth of a digital file also increases its what?

1. Quality

2. Clarity

3. Size

4. Speed

The correct answer is: Size

Increasing the bit depth of a digital file directly impacts its size. Bit depth refers to the amount of data used to represent each element in the image, such as a pixel. A higher bit depth allows for a greater number of color variations and shading, resulting in a more detailed and nuanced image. For example, an 8-bit image can represent 256 different color values per channel (and three channels in a typical RGB image means around 16.7 million colors), while a 16-bit image can represent 65,536 color values per channel, allowing for much smoother gradients and more precise color rendering. However, this increase in detail requires more data storage, leading to a larger file size. While quality and clarity can be improved with higher bit depths due to the richer color information captured, these factors are not the direct result of bit depth. Rather, they are subjective measures that depend on how that data is displayed and viewed. Speed, on the other hand, generally refers to processing or loading times, which may be affected by file size but is not directly influenced by the bit depth itself. Therefore, the most reliable conclusion is that increasing bit depth results in a larger file size due to the additional data it contains.