What Is BMP?

Date First Published: 29th July 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Computer Software

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Uses Of The BMP Format
History

Learn about what BMP is in this article.

Short for Bitmap, the BMP file format is used to store Bitmap digital images. It is an uncompressed file format, meaning that high quality is retained, but file sizes are extremely large. BMP has a 24-bit colour depth, meaning that it can store 24 bits of uncompressed data for each pixel and 16,777,216 different colours, which can quickly become very large with millions of pixels.

BMP files can be opened by most image editors and programs, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and CorelDRAW. Some can also export images as BMP files. Windows and macOS come with built-in image viewers that support BMP files, including Microsoft Photos, Apple Preview, and Apple Photos. Most image editors, including Microsoft Photos and CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, can also convert BMP files to other image formats, including PNG and JPEG.

Note:

BMP files have the ".bmp" file extension and the "image/bmp" MIME media type.

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BMP can be pronounced "B-M-P" or "bump".

Note:

The BMP file format is made up of a 14-byte header, a device-independent bitmap header, extra bit masks, a colour table, an ICC colour profile and a pixel array.

Uses Of The BMP Format

Due to the extremely large file sizes, the BMP format is rarely used on the Web and in internet applications, like email, social media, or cloud storage, since this would greatly slow down the page loading speed and use up a lot of storage space. Instead, the BMP file format is often used when sending images for professional printing or for assessment so that they can be kept the same quality, helping them pass the quality test.

The JPEG and PNG formats are used as alternatives to the BMP format when saving and sharing digital images since they are more web-friendly. Although they are also bitmaps, the image compression algorithms greatly reduce their file sizes, speeding up file transfers and leading to less bandwidth needed to transfer and download digital images.

However, most BMP files can be compressed with lossless data compression algorithms, such as 7-Zip because they contain redundant data. Some lossless compression formats, such as RAR include mechanisms to efficiently compress this type of data.

History

In the 1990s, the BMP format was developed by Microsoft for use with the Windows operating system to maintain the resolution of images across different devices. However, it is no longer limited to devices running Windows. It is now compatible with most programs on Mac and Android devices.