I never called them 8 bit images. I wrote 8 bits per channel. Each of RGB are channels. An RGBA image has 4 channels. A grayscale image has one channel. This is standard terminology. So an 8 bits per channel image with three channels is a 24 but image.
It is very precise terminology, used correctly. It's also covered in your links; you can read it there.
Now, if you encode gray levels in RGB, at 8 bits per channel, you do indeed end up with only 256 gray levels in the image, because for each pixel, R=G=B.
It is very precise terminology, used correctly. It's also covered in your links; you can read it there.
Now, if you encode gray levels in RGB, at 8 bits per channel, you do indeed end up with only 256 gray levels in the image, because for each pixel, R=G=B.