The specific documentation is at http://effbot.org/imagingbook/concepts.htm:
Mode
The mode of an image defines the type
and depth of a pixel in the image. The
current release supports the following
standard modes:
- 1 (1-bit pixels, black and white, stored with one pixel per byte)
- L (8-bit pixels, black and white)
- P (8-bit pixels, mapped to any other mode using a colour palette)
- RGB (3×8-bit pixels, true colour)
- RGBA (4×8-bit pixels, true colour with transparency mask)
- CMYK (4×8-bit pixels, colour separation)
- YCbCr (3×8-bit pixels, colour video format)
- I (32-bit signed integer pixels)
- F (32-bit floating point pixels)
PIL also provides limited support for
a few special modes, including LA (L
with alpha), RGBX (true colour with
padding) and RGBa (true colour with
premultiplied alpha).