[ft] Please explain pixel modes

[Robert Dailey]

I'm new to freetype and I am currently doing my best to learn how to use it.

I was looking over the Pixel Mode documentation located here:

http://freetype.sourceforge.net/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-basic_types.html#FT_Pixel_Mode

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding these pixel modes. It seems to me like everything comes in as grayscale and you have to apply a hue to the pixels yourself to give it color. Is this true? If not, what are the gray modes for? Are these masks that represent the alpha channel of each glyph?

Help is appreciated.