No, read it again more carefully. They’ve selected colours from the subset of RGB that is representable with 12-bits.
> The palette uses a 12-bit colour depth, so each colour requires only four characters when specified as a hexadecimal colour code in a css or svg file:
Four hexadecimal characters is twelve bits. The colours they’ve chosen can be represented precisely in a 12-bit colour space. Get what they mean?
It’s further confirmed again in the article:
> Using a 12-bit colour depth limits the available colours, so slight changes to hue, chroma, and luminance must be made, but these are small enough not to be noticeable.
How could it ‘limit the available colours’ unless this was their meaning?
Each hexadecimal digit is 4-bits, so a 4 digit hexadecimal number is 16-bits.
The number of colors defines the color depth. 16 colors is 4-bit color depth, so 12 colors is less than 4-bit and not 12-bit. I am satisfied that the author has misunderstood the meaning of color depth aka bit depth or invented a new meaning for it previously unknown to the world.
Yes, and they have selected these 12 colours out of a range of 4096 colours, so from a range with a colour-depth of 12-bits.
If they picked from the millions of colours expressible in CSV it'd be 24-bit colour-depth. But they didn't - they picked from a subset of 12-bit depth.
> so 12 colors is less than 4-bit and not 12-bit
From a range of 12-bit colours, is what they mean. From a range. Get it? I think you're confused that there are 12 colours, and it's from a range of 12-bit colours. The two things are unrelated.
> I am satisfied that the author has misunderstood the meaning of color depth
Don't know what else to say really - sorry you don't understand. See the every other comment in this thread saying exactly the same thing as me if you aren't sure.
Pretty sure you are wrong. They're actually using 3 hex digits (the first color is #817.) The 12 colors are selected from a 12-bit space (#000 through #fff.) Makes sense to me.
