Web-Safe Colors

Web-safe colors also known as the web-safe color palette, browser-safe colors, browser-safe palette, Netscape palette, 216 palette, Web palette, color map, and the 6x6x6 color cube, all the names describe the same set of colors. The web-safe colors are the colors that should not dither on computer display systems that can only display 256 colors also known as 8-bit color, and will display the same on both Macintosh (MAC) and (PC) computers. Now to complicate things even more browsers, in order to to run quicker, will only show a specific set of 256 colors on 8-bit color monitors. And if that browser has to show a color that's out of it's range. The browser will only have two choices, the first choice is that the browser can either mix two colors to create the missing color which is also known as dithering, or the other choice is that the browser can also find the closest matching color within the specific set of the 256 colors which can be a close match or a way off the mark match that we should not speak of.

Out of the 256 colors in an 8-bit color system there are actually only 216 color values that are considered to be web-safe colors that can be shown without dithering. The number 216 was selected because it allows exactly six shades of each color which is red, green and blue, which when multiplied by each other equals exactly 216 as in the following example (6 x 6 x 6 = 216). Also because the remaining 40 colors vary on MAC's and PC's.

Now the web-safe colors do have color names but most of the color names are taken from the extended color names list and most of the colored names are not listed in the standard web-safe color map as a result the browser will mix two colors to create a close match for the missing color name which is also known as dithering, or the other choice is that the browser can also find the closest matching color within the specific set of the 256 colors which can be a close match or a way off the mark match that we should not speak of again. Though colored names are easy to use they are not the most reliable way to display color for this reason I will leave out the color name values for each web-safe color. I will list all the color names in a future tutorial though. Now each web-safe color can also be displayed in hexadecimal notation, short hex notation, rgb percentage notation as well as rgb integer-triplet notation. I will show you all 216 web-safe colors as well as all there color values minus color names in a chart later in this tutorial. But first let me show you how to check to see if your color is a web-safe color.

Now to see if your color is web safe, there is a couple of ways to find out depending on which notation you are using. For instance when using RGB percentage notation the value should either be 0% or a number that is divisible by 20, so the values that are allowed will be 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100%, an example will be rgb(20%,100%,80%).

If you use RGB integer-triplet notation your values should either be 0 or a number that is divisible by 51, so the allowed values would be 0, 51, 102, 153, 204 and 255, an example of this would be rgb(102,0,255).

With hexadecimal notation any of the color values that are 00, 33, 66, 99, cc and ff are considered to be web-safe, an example of this is #6600cc. This also means that the shorthand hex values can also be used. The web-safe values would be as follows 0, 3, 6, 9, c and f, an example of a short hex value would be #c36.

Now let me show you the 216 web-safe colors and there values minus there colored name values which I will display in future tutorial.

Now there are also 22 really web-safe colors that have been discovered from the 216 web-safe colors that are reliably displayed on Windows (PC) and Macintosh (MAC), Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape Navigator, 8-bit, 16-bit, and 24-bit display systems.

Now let me show you the 22 really web-safe colors.