Quantization (image processing)

Quantization in image processing is when a computer takes a picture with lots and lots of colors and tries to simplify it. Imagine you have a bunch of crayons and you want to color a picture that has a lot of different colors in it, but you only have a limited number of crayons. So, you need to decide which crayon is closest to each color in the picture and use that crayon to color it in.

This is what computers do when they "quantize" an image. They look at all the colors in the picture and then group them into a smaller number of color "buckets" – kind of like how you might group your crayons by color. Then, they use the closest color in each bucket to replace all the other colors in the picture. This makes the image look less complex, but it also can make it look less detailed and less realistic.

Think about a picture of a sunset – if you use too few colors, you might lose the subtle gradients of the sky and make it look like a cartoon. But if you use too many colors, the picture might look cluttered and confusing, like a jumbled mess of crayons. The goal of quantization in image processing is to find the right balance between simplicity and detail so that the image looks good to the human eye.