Using the GIMP is greatly enhanced by having a display with sufficient
color depth to display
subtle color variations. A display with only 8 bits per pixel (bpp)
can represent only 256 colors simultaneously, which is insufficient
for many photographs. The result, as explained in
Section
9.5.1, is a type of color distortion
called dithering.
If your video adapter has sufficient RAM, it is possible to display at
16 or 24 bits per pixel, which will greatly enhance your viewing
pleasure and your ability to work effectively with color. For
example, to run at 16 bits per pixel at a
screen
resolution, you'll need about 1.6 Mb of video RAM. However, at a
resolution of
,
you'll need less than 1 Mb. Whether it
is reasonable to use the lower resolution to get better color depth is
up to the individual user to decide.
The X Window System on Linux machines typically defaults to only 8
bpp. If you are using XFree86, the following command can be used to
run a higher color depth (for other X Window Systems, consult your man
pages):
% startx -- -bpp 16
This command will run X at 16 bpp only if there is an appropriate
section in the XF86Config file. For Redhat Linux systems, this file
is typically found in the directory
/etc or
/etc/X11.
More details on how to configure the X Window System using XF86Config
can be found in the XF86Config man page.
©2000 Gimp-Savvy.com
