Last modified: 2005-07-30 by phil nelson
Keywords: fotw | color | palette | browser safe |
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Computer colours on monitors (in Windows on a PC) are made up of a mixture of Red, Green and Blue (RGB). On each of these three variables, there are 256 values, which means that we can make more than 16.7 million different colours. The Browser Safe Palette (BSP) is the 216 colours (that is 216 different combinations of Red, Green and Blue values) used by the World Wide Web browsers like Netscape and Explorer. For some reason, the manufacturers of these browsers have decided not to allow more colours used, even though, as we have seen, one can easily have millions of colours.
Difficulties appear when one tries to use a colour that is not in the BSP. The browser will then distort the colour and it will display the colours in the image as blurred, uneven, dotted or 'dirty'. Note that this effect will only appear in WWW browsers. The images display perfectly in other software such as paint programmes, viewers, etc.
The discussion led to a set of 32 Browser Safe colours. The RGB values of the FOTW standard colours are:
| Color | RGB Value | FIAV code | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very light red | 255-102-102 | R-- | |
| Light red | 255- 51- 51 | R- | |
| * | Red | 255- 0 - 0 | R |
| * | Dark red | 204- 0 - 0 | R+ |
| Very dark red | 153- 0 - 0 | R++ | |
| Very light blue | 51-204-255 | B-- | |
| * | Light blue | 51-153-255 | B- |
| * | Blue | 0 - 0 -255 | B |
| * | Dark blue | 0 - 0 -204 | B+ |
| * | Very dark blue | 0 - 0 -153 | B++ |
| Very light green | 102-255-102 | V-- | |
| Light green | 0 -255- 51 | V- | |
| * | Green | 0 -204- 0 | V |
| * | Dark green | 0 -153- 0 | V+ |
| Very dark green | 0 -102- 0 | V++ | |
| Very light yellow | 255-255-204 | Y-- | |
| Light yellow | 255-255-153 | Y- | |
| * | Yellow | 255-255- 0 | <|