The History of the Browser-Safe Web Palette
This article was written by lynda.com co-founder, Lynda Weinman, in 2004. With current technology being so much more mature than in the early days of web design, browser-safe colors are more of a historical curiosity than a necessary topic of study for today’s designers. However, we still receive a lot of questions about the palette Lynda first wrote about in her landmark book, Designing Web Graphics, in 1995, and its historical significance to the field of web design is undeniable.
For current instruction in color and web design, check out the selection of courses available in the lynda.com Online Training Library®: Color | Web Design
The Browser-Safe Web Palette
by Lynda Weinman
The Web-Safe Color Dilemma
You might have heard of the browser-safe palette, Netscape palette, 216 palette,
Web palette, and/or 6x6x6 color cube. All these terms refer to the same set of colors,
which this page will describe in detail.
A lot of people credit me with the browser-safe palette, but it's a misplaced honor
(if you can call it that!). I do have the distinction of being the first author
to identify and publish the colors - but I can't take credit for creating them.
The browser-safe palette was developed by programmers with no design sense, I assure
you. That's because a designer would have never picked these colors. Mostly, the
palette contains far less light and dark colors than I wish it did, and is heavy
on highly saturated colors and low on muted, tinted or toned colors.
The only reason to use the browser-safe palette is if you have a concern that your
Web design work will be viewed from a 256 color (8-bit) computer system. When I
published the browser-safe color chart in my first book, Designing Web Graphics,
waaaayyy back in 1996, the MAJORITY of computer users had 8-bit video cards. Today,
the minority have them, so the justification for using the browser-safe palette
has diminished greatly if you are developing your site for users who have current
computer systems.
Is the Browser-Safe Palette Dead?
Though this might seem blasphemous to older readers of my books, or loyal website
visitors, I believe it's safe to design without the palette. I believe this because
so few computer users view the web in 256 colors anymore.
Keep in mind however, that many companies that hire designers and developers still
feel it's a badge of Web design honor to work with these colors, so you might want
to know how to use them if you have to.
At this point, the palette is built into Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Illustrator,
Freehand, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, GoLive, and just about any professional Web design/development
tool, so using it is fairly easy.
Conversely, there's no harm in using the browser-safe palette either. It simply
limits your choices to 216 colors. Most people don't have a lot of color picking
confidence, and working with limited color choices is easier. At this point, there's
no right or wrong when it comes to which colors you pick, but more important to
know how to combine colors in pleasing and effective ways.
Who would have thought that computers would mature as quickly as they have? In those
early days of the web, only the professional designer had a system that supported
thousands or millions of colors. Today, any consumer with a Gateway or iMac is going
to see all the colors you can throw their way. It's progress folks! Those of us
who had to learn to design for the Web in the old days developed a skill that is
fast becoming obsolete. So much for moving forward -- it's great liberation in my
opinion!
What Is the Browser-Safe Palette?
For those of you unfamiliar with my books,
they go into great detail about subjects which may be new to you, such as dithering,
CLUTs, palettes, and 8-bit color. The palettes below are offered on the CD-ROM that
comes with the book, and are available free here on the Web. Note: You do NOT have
to buy, or promise to buy, my books to
use these palettes. They are offered here freely with no strings attached.
The Browser-Safe Palette, as I so named it, is the actual palette that Mosaic, Netscape,
and Internet Explorer use within their browsers. The palettes used by these browsers
are slightly different on Macs and PCs. This palette is based on math, not beauty.
I didn't and wouldn't have picked the colors in this palette, but Netscape, Mosaic,
and Internet Explorer did, so....
The Browser-Safe Palette only contains 216 colors out of a possible 256. That is
because the remaining 40 colors vary on Macs and PCs. By eliminating the 40 variable
colors, this palette is optimized for cross-platform use.
The Browser-Safe Palette should not be used to remap color photographs. It is better
to use an adaptive palette (with no dithering, if possible), and let the end-browser
do any additional dithering. I have a test
page which proves this point.
The Browser-Safe Palette is useful for flat-color illustrations, logos with flat-color,
and areas in any image that have a lot of a single color. When a browser dithers
flat colors it looks far more objectionable than when it dithers photographs. Look
at this test page, which demonstrates
this very point.
Since this palette was generated by math, not visual insightfulness, I hired my
dear friend Joy Silverman who spent 60 hours of her life rearranging it so it might
make sense to visual designers. There are two versions here: one organized by hue
and one organized by value. You may copy either from these pages and distribute
them freely to whomever might want to make better looking Web pages from them.
Special thanks to Bruce Heavin
who spent hours with me at my house, going back and forth from my Mac to my PC,
trying to figure this out and succeeding!
If you would like the CLUT or these palettes, visit my files
site and download them. Note: This CLUT is only useful for flat-color style illustrations,
logos, and large areas of flat color. Use it to load into the Photoshop Swatches
Palette for this purpose. Do not use it to remap color photos or photographic-style
images.
