Representing and handling colors is one of the fundamental tasks of an image-manipulation program like GIMP. Thus, we cover the topic in several places in this book. In this chapter, we present the main concepts and tools. In Appendix A, we discuss the foundations of color perception, so refer to that appendix if you need to refresh your knowledge. The theories of color and vision form the foundation of color handling in GIMP, and a thorough understanding of that appendix will help you to understand this chapter fully.

Additionally, Chapter 19 contains information about 16-bit color depth and handling photographs from a digital camera in raw format. Chapter 20 describes all the image formats handled by GIMP, focusing on the definition and use of color palettes. And in Chapter 22, we explain how to set the parameters of color management.