The 216 Browser Safe Colors

Before the days of High Color and True Color, older computer monitors (back in the late 1990s) displayed only 256 colors because they only had 8-bit video cards. Even different Web browsers had their own unique palette of 256 colors, but they all had some colors in common.  These common colors are called the "Browser Safe Colors"  or "216 Web Palette" and they all displayed the same in all the Web browsers.

So if you wanted to display a graphic on the web and you wanted to make sure that all the colors in the graphic displayed correctly, then you had to use only Browser Safe Colors. 

With today's high color monitors and powerful graphics cards, the use of Browser Safe Colors isn't nearly as important.  But if you have a simple graphic (less than 256 colors), then sticking with Browser Safe Colors is a good idea because you know for sure that it will look the same to everyone who views it on the Web.

HEX Representation of Colors

• These 6 digits represent the three colors of Red, Green and Blue:
• The first two digits represent the RED component.
• The next two represent the GREEN component.
• The last two represent the BLUE component.
• A single HEX digit can have a value of 0 through 9 or A through F.
• "00" means no color at all and "FF" is the highest value which means maximum color.

The color GREEN in HEX is represented by the number "00FF00".
It has no RED or BLUE components, and has a maximum of the GREEN component. 

RGB Representation of Colors

In the RGB Color System a color is represented by three numbers:

• The first number represents the RED component.
• The second number represent the GREEN component.
• The third number represent the BLUE component.
• A number can have a value of 0 through 255.
• 0 means no color at all and 255 is the highest value which means maximum color.

The color GREEN in RGB is represented by the three numbers "0 255 0". 
Where Red=0, Green=255 and Blue=0.

In the Browser Safe Colors table, the HEX representation for each color is listed. 
This table shows the relationship between HEX values and their equivalent RGB values:

So the color 336600 in HEX would be represented by 51 102 0 in RGB.

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