8 bits 16 bits question

[pielago]

okay i have a simple question that for sure ya can answer easy  here it goes!

whats an 8-bits and 16 etc?

does it means you can use 8 different colors only?

or

does it means the canvas MUST be 8 x and 8 y?

or

does it means 8 pixels x and y and canvas can be any size?

 

I am still confuse?

i read many stuff but they dont go to the point

[xod]

I do not know if it will help but read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth

[Ego Eram Reputo]

8 bit means a data value containing 8 digits of binary data. In binary this means a number from 00000000 to 11111111 which in decimal is a range from 0 to 255.

An 8 bit color depth can contain one of 256 colors usually selcted from a palette.

8 bit when applied to color channels like RGBA means each one can hold a value of 0 to 255. Or 4 x 8 bit = 32 bit RGBA. This is how paint.net stores colors.

16 bit has twice as many binary digits and can store decimal numbers up to approx 64000.

The number of bits does not correlate to the same number of colors. Nor does the number of bits have anything to do with the canvas size.