How do I find out if a PNG is PNG-8 or PNG-24?

The file command use in other answers is sometimes inconsistent. For example:

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
rick@dell:~/Pictures$ file "256 colors.jpg"
256 colors.jpg: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01, resolution (DPI), density 96x96, segment length 16, baseline, precision 8, 800x800, frames 3
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
rick@dell:~/Pictures$ file "vnStat.png"
vnStat.png: PNG image data, 410 x 121, 8-bit/color RGB, non-interlaced

The first instance is likely a camera picture and the second instance I took using a screen capture.

The identify command, which my answer is based on, appears to work correctly in all instances. For example testing on the first instance above:

rick@dell:~/Pictures$ identify "256 colors.jpg"
256 colors.jpg JPEG 800x800 800x800+0+0 8-bit sRGB 45KB 0.000u 0:00.000
## ```



I have [ImageMagick][1] installed which allows me to use:

$ identify -verbose vnStat.png Image: vnStat.png Format: PNG (Portable Network Graphics) Mime type: image/png Class: DirectClass Geometry: 410x121+0+0 Units: Undefined Type: TrueColor Endianess: Undefined Colorspace: sRGB Depth: 8-bit Channel depth: red: 8-bit green: 8-bit blue: 8-bit Channel statistics: Pixels: 49610 Red: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 12.0814 (0.0473779) standard deviation: 46.7032 (0.18315) kurtosis: 18.8998 skewness: 4.49862 Green: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 21.1804 (0.0830606) standard deviation: 57.5336 (0.225622) kurtosis: 6.68226 skewness: 2.82613 Blue: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 14.2606 (0.0559237) standard deviation: 50.2969 (0.197243) kurtosis: 13.5573 skewness: 3.85914 Image statistics: Overall: min: 0 (0) max: 255 (1) mean: 15.8408 (0.0621207) standard deviation: 51.7078 (0.202776) kurtosis: 11.8528 skewness: 3.62638 Rendering intent: Perceptual Gamma: 0.454545 Chromaticity: red primary: (0.64,0.33) green primary: (0.3,0.6) blue primary: (0.15,0.06) white point: (0.3127,0.329) Background color: white Border color: srgb(223,223,223) Matte color: grey74 Transparent color: black Interlace: None Intensity: Undefined Compose: Over Page geometry: 410x121+0+0 Dispose: Undefined Iterations: 0 Compression: Zip Orientation: Undefined Properties: date:create: 2017-01-24T20:04:50-07:00 date:modify: 2017-01-24T20:04:50-07:00 png:IHDR.bit-depth-orig: 8 png:IHDR.bit_depth: 8 png:IHDR.color-type-orig: 2 png:IHDR.color_type: 2 (Truecolor) png:IHDR.interlace_method: 0 (Not interlaced) png:IHDR.width,height: 410, 121 png:sRGB: intent=0 (Perceptual Intent) png:text: 1 tEXt/zTXt/iTXt chunks were found signature: e9f31b79da6ce46cdea5da21ae8648496faa181b0621098aa2dbbdff4a9a4502 Software: gnome-screenshot Artifacts: filename: vnStat.png verbose: true Tainted: False Filesize: 14.7KB Number pixels: 49.6K Pixels per second: 0B User time: 0.000u Elapsed time: 0:01.000 Version: ImageMagick 6.8.9-9 Q16 x86_64 2017-07-31 http://www.imagemagick.org

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For a summary report omit all parameters:

$ identify vnStat.png vnStat.png PNG 410x121 410x121+0+0 8-bit sRGB 14.7KB 0.000u 0:00.000

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Replace `vnStat.png` with your own `.png` file name and preface it with the path if necessary.

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To understand PNG-24 vs PNG-32 this answer from [SuperUser][2] summarizes it:

If your image is 24 bit you will see:

Channel depth: red: 8-bit green: 8-bit blue: 8-bit

If your PNG image is 32 bit you will see:

Channel depth: red: 8-bit green: 8-bit blue: 8-bit alpha: 8-bit

However this answer is not complete because 8-bit color also shows 8 bits for Red, Green and Blue, only a color palette is used to limit the number of selections (like in good old Windows 2.0).


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Examine these three pictures from [Wikipedia Depth Article][3]:

[![8_bit.png][4]][4]

File Name: `8_bit.png`

Using:

identify -verbose 8_bit.png | grep colors png:PLTE.number_colors: 249

We see there are 249 colors used. The maximum possible with 8 bits is 256 colors.


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[![4 bit][5]][5]

File Name: `4_bit.png`

Using:

identify -verbose 4_bit.png | grep colors png:PLTE.number_colors: 16

We see there are 16 colors used which is the maximum color combinations possible with 4 bits.


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[![2_bit.png][6]][6]

File Name: `2_bit.png`

Using:

$ identify -verbose 2_bit.png | grep colors png:PLTE.number_colors: 4 ```

We see there are 4 colors used which is the maximum color combinations possible with 2 bits.