CCI stores the image data in 3 seperated color streams. A single pixel needs 3 (RGB) by 2 binary characters, 6 bytes in total. The first byte holds the red component value and the second the run length. Third byte is the green component value and so on. If your image is larger than 1 pixel, the CCI format stores at first the complete red stream, from pixel #1 until the last pixel, then green and then blue.

The implemented run length encoding saves a large amount of data, lossless, for graphical images, but leads into big accumulations of data for photographical images.