The Web-Safe Color Palette - Yes or No?

Modern computers and browsers can display 16.8 million different colors. Folks who create or manipulate images using programs like Adobe Photoshop choose a particular color by specifying its 6-digit hexadecimal code. However, some very old computer systems and/or browsers can only reliably display 216 colors.


These 216 "safe" colors make up the Web-Safe Color Palette. The 6-digit hexadecimal codes for these colors contain three adjacent pairs of the following digits: 0, 3, 6, 9, C, or F. For example, medium blue is #3366CC and medium green is #009900. Many websites show the 216 web-safe colors in a variety of designs. And when using Photoshop's Color Picker, you can view only web-safe colors by putting a checkmark in the box next to "Only Web Colors."

The decision website developers must make is whether or not they are going to limit their website colors to these 216 colors to satisfy an increasingly small number of visitors, or feel free to choose from the entire spectrum of 16.8 million colors. When a system that only supports 216 colors encounters a color code that is not web-safe, it displays the color it feels is the closest match.

As time passes, many developers are choosing to no longer constrain themselves to web-safe colors. However, of special consideration is the viewing of webpages on PDAs (personal data assistants) and cellphones. If it is known that a large percentage of a website's visitors will be viewing the site on these devices, the developer may want to strongly consider using mainly web-safe colors as these devices, at this time, only support the web-safe color palette.

As a side note, keep in mind that computer systems display colors slightly differently - depending on the browser, monitor, and video card. If you are developing a website and need to be very particular about a color, view your test website on a variety of systems before finalizing your color selection.


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