What is a grayscale color?

Grayscale is the collection or the range of monochromic (gray) shades, ranging from pure white on the lightest end to pure black on the opposite end. Grayscale only contains luminance (brightness) information and no color information; that is why maximum luminance is white and zero luminance is black; everything in between is a shade of gray.

Why is grayscale achromatic?

Grayscale only contains luminance (brightness) information and no color information; that is why maximum luminance is white and zero luminance is black; everything in between is a shade of gray. That is why grayscale images contain only shades of gray and no color. Grayscale is also known as achromatic.

How many shades can a grayscale image be?

Grayscale can be any number of shades, not just 256. It can be 32, 256, thousands or even millions. A better definition of grayscale is: an image where the value of each pixel carries only intensity information, such that the image is composed exclusively of shades of gray varying from black to white.

How does a grayscale printer work?

In its most basic form, a printer can represent an image in grayscale using only black ink on white paper. Here, the variety of shades of gray is achieved by the density and spacing of the ink dots. An all-black area will be densely covered, while a lighter area will have fewer or more scattered ink dots.