Image File Formats Supporting Indexed Color
These are some of the most representative image file formats that support indexed color modes. Some of these support other modes (e.g. truecolor), but only the indexed color modes are listed here.
- NOTE: most of the formats will also support a color table with fewer colors than the maximum that a given bit depth can offer.
| Acronym | Full name | Creator | DOS extension | 1-bit (2) | 2-bit (4) | 3-bit (8) | 4-bit (16) | 5-bit (32) | 6-bit (64) | 7-bit (128) | 8-bit (256) | Compression |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCX | PC Paintbrush Image File | ZSoft Corporation | .pcx |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | RLE |
| ILBM | InterLeaved BitMap | Electronic Arts | .lbm, .iff |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes* (EHB mode, 64-color) | Yes* | Yes* | Uncompressed, RLE |
| GIF | Graphics Interchange Format | Compuserve | .gif |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | LZW |
| TGA | TARGA File format | Truevision | .tga, .vda, .icb, .vst |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | RLE |
| TIFF | Tagged Image File Format | Aldus | .tif |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Uncompressed, DEFLATE, LZW, PackBits, CCITT Group 3 fax, CCITT Group 4 fax, JPEG, others less common (**) |
| BMP | Device-independent Bitmap | Microsoft | .bmp, .dib, .rle |
Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Uncompressed, RLE (***) |
| PSD | Photoshop Document | Adobe Systems | .psd |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | PackBits |
| PNG | Portable Network Graphics | PNG Development Group | .png |
Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | DEFLATE |
- * 64- (true, not EHB), 128- and 256-color modes only available for the AGA Amiga chipset.
- ** Native support for proprietary compression schemes.
- *** RLE with optional proprietary Delta-leaps.
Read more about this topic: Indexed Color
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