An 8-bit system produces a maximum of ___ shades of gray.

An 8-bit system produces a maximum of ___ shades of gray.

• A. 16
• B. 128
• C. 256
• D. 512

Answer: (C)

Shades of gray in a digital image are determined by how many distinct intensity values a pixel can represent. Each additional bit doubles the number of possible values. An 8-bit pixel can store 2^8 values, which is 256, typically ranging from 0 (black) to 255 (white). So the maximum number of grayscale shades is 256. The other numbers correspond to different bit depths: 16 would come from 4 bits, 128 from 7 bits, and 512 from 9 bits.

Shades of gray in a digital image are determined by how many distinct intensity values a pixel can represent. Each additional bit doubles the number of possible values. An 8-bit pixel can store 2^8 values, which is 256, typically ranging from 0 (black) to 255 (white). So the maximum number of grayscale shades is 256. The other numbers correspond to different bit depths: 16 would come from 4 bits, 128 from 7 bits, and 512 from 9 bits.