16711680 (decimal) is 0x00FF0000 (hexadecimal)
00 – Alpha value (0 dec)
FF – Red (255 dec)
00 – Green (0 dec)
00 – Blue (0 dec)
See http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecolorallocatealpha.php to set the alpha byte
Edit:
Also, to answer your first question — yes, you can create a color without an image resource (and, consequently without a call to imagecolorallocate):
$col1 = 0x00FF0000; // Red
$col2 = 0x0000FF00; // Green
// etc…