Systems, apparatuses, and methods for performing parallel histogram calculation with application to palette table derivation are disclosed. An encoder calculates a first histogram for a first portion of pixel component value bits of a block of pixels. Then, the encoder selects a first number of the highest pixel count bins from the first histogram. Also, the encoder calculates a second histogram for a second portion of pixel component value bits of the block. The encoder selects a second number of the highest pixel count bins from the second histogram. A third histogram is calculated from the concatenation of bits assigned to the first and second number of bins, and the highest pixel count bins are selected from the third histogram. A palette table is derived based on these highest pixel count bins selected from the third histogram, and the block of pixels is encoded using the palette table.