Setting bit depth in bitmaps

[Dave McElderry]

I'm attempting to create a logo in PE that I need to save as a bitmap. It's just pure black and white, and I need to save it as such; the lower the bit depth the better. A bit depth of 1 would be fine. For some reason PE will only allow me options of 16 bit or higher. PE is such a capable program, it's hard to imagine that it won't do this. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Bob]

Sounds like you are not in the right image mode. To get a bit depth of 1, the mode must be set to "bitmap". To change to "bitmap" mode, you need to change to "grayscale" mode, if you aren't in it already, then change the mode to "bitmap". You can run the threshold adjustment on the image before the bitmap mode change if you want more control of how the grays drop out.

The grayscale to bitmap mode will let you choose the method which can be a 50% threshold, a dither. or halftone screen. 50% threshold should be fine for your pure black/white image.

Now you can save as a bmp and the bit depth will be 1.


Next time, you can create a blank bitmap mode image and draw the logo in bitmap mode from the start.

[Dave McElderry]

Thanks Bob. I used to do quite a bit (no pun intended) with Photoshop Elements but now I know how rusty I am. This worked great. I appreciate your response.