CSS Colors | CSS: Presentation Layer

Standards Based Development

Browser-safe Palette

Browser-safe Palette: 216 color traditionally used in web development; popularized when most computers rocked 8-bit (256-color) monitors. There are 216 colors in the palette because there are 40 colors reserved for the os (256 - 40 = 216).

Browser-safe palette is also commonly referred to as the Netscape palette, 216 palette, Web palette, and 6x6x6 color cube; they all refer to the same color set. Organizing the colors in the browser-safe palette by hue puts the colors in order by color. Organizing the colors in the browser-safe palette by value pus the colors in order of light, middle values, and darks.

The browser-safe palette was used by Mosaic, Netscape and ie

Non-Dithering Colors in Browsers

Storing more than 32 bits of color in your RGB/RGBA declarations is silly. If you use either of the 24-bit representations above (or the 12-bit representation, since it converts losslessly into 24-bit), you’ll get correct4 colors.

If you use HSL colors, you’ll lose some precision in conversion, but probably no worse than you’ll lose when your site gets displayed on a 18-bit or fewer display (such as in the iPhone 3GS and earlier).

Color and Web Browsers, http://blog.brycekerley.net/post/44754571165/color-and-web-browsers