Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI) 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

A 24-bit BMP image can represent 16.7 million colors due to the way colors are encoded in this format. In a 24-bit color depth, each pixel is represented by three channels: red, green, and blue (RGB). Each of these color channels can have 256 different intensity levels (from 0 to 255).

To calculate the total number of colors that can be represented in this format, you multiply the number of levels for each channel together:

256 (red) * 256 (green) * 256 (blue) = 16,777,216 colors.

This total is commonly approximated as 16.7 million colors. This wide range allows for a rich and detailed representation of images, making 24-bit BMP images ideal for tasks that require high color fidelity and depth.

The other options list lower numbers of colors, which are characteristic of different bit depths. For example, 256 colors correspond to an 8-bit image, whereas 65,536 colors relate to a 16-bit image, which uses 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, and 5 bits for blue. The count of 1 million colors does not accurately reflect the calculations for common bit depths.