Describing how images can be represented as zeros and ones, and then stored and transferred as data, can seem like a complicated topic. To simplify it, let’s start with the concept of a bitmap. Think of a bitmap as an image created in black and white, using individual pixels. Each pixel is either black or white, and when all the pixels come together, they form an image. You can probably see how this can be reflected in storing the image using zeros and ones: if the pixel is black, it is represented by a one, and if it is white, it is represented by a zero.

As you begin to incorporate color into the mix, things become a bit trickier. Instead of representing each color with a single number, color is represented by a string of binary digits. To simplify, let’s use an example with four colors: orange, purple, white, and black. These colors could be coded as the following binary numbers: 00, 01, 10, 11. When the image is saved, each pixel will be classified with one of these sets of numbers. This allows any device reading the image data to interpret the color of each pixel accurately.