Some web browsers only show 16 or 256 colors instead
of the more pleasant 16,000 or 16,000,000 colors.
While few people browse the web for any length of time
at 16 colors, 256 color browsing is pretty common,
both on PC's and Mac's.
(This background is #CC9999 a 256-Color-Safe color).. |
If you don't want browsers that are limited to 256 colors to see
a dithered or "blotchy" color background, then you should
select colors based on Red Green and Blue base values of
00, 33, 66, 99, CC, & FF.
(This background is #99CC99 a 256-Color-Safe color). |
For example: a background set
to #AA9999 (see below) is not "256 color browser safe," so it will look blotchy
to you if you are reading that page on a 256 or lower color system.
(This background is #9999CC a 256-Color-Safe color). |
These so-called browser safe colors come from a 6x6x6 RGB
color cube where each R,G,B value can be one from 20%
intervals along the full spectrum. Hence those evenly
distributed hex values for each element of the RGB triplet.
(This background is #999999 a 256-Color-Safe color).
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In decimal the values are: 0,51,102,153,204,255 (increments of 51), but since
HTML <bgcolor= > or <font color= > uses hexadecimal
that is of parenthetical value here.
(This background is #AA9999 which is NOT a 256 Color Safe color).
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"Browser safe" is somewhat PC-centric. While most Mac & PC
browsers running on 8-bit (256 color) video systems will display
the BS-256 without dithering, most unix browserswhen running
under X w/8-bit video actually use a smaller5x5x5 RGB color
cube for their palette. This cube onlyshares the interval
values 00 and FF with the BSP, so "browser safe" also means
"almost guarenteed to dither under 256 color unix X-Windows.
(This background is #9999AA which is NOT a 256 Color Safe background.
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Thanks to Devin Ben-Hur
who contributed the content for this page.
If you are not viewing this page with
Netscape Navigator or MS-Internet Explorer with revision number at v3.0 or
higher, you will not see individual colors behind these paragraphs.
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Other Resources:
Visibone
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