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The Windows and Macintosh operating systems each have their
own default set of 256 colors, of which 216 colors are shared by both systems.
These 216 colors are known as the safe colors, because there will be no adverse
affects when these colors are displayed on either operating system. When using
the hexadecimal system for the safe colors, there are only 6 color intensities
for each of the additive primaries, red green, and blue (6 x 6 x 6 = 216), instead
of the 256 levels for each primary in
24-bit color. Because there are only 6 intensities, each of the three
primary color components must be one of the following values:
00 or 33
or 66 or 99
or CC or FF
The table below shows how these hexadecimal values relate to
the intensity of light they represent, both as a percentage and as a number
value (0-255) for the red, green, and blue color components.
|
Hexadecimal Value
|
Percentage of Light Intensity
|
RGB Number Value
|
|
00
|
0%
|
0
|
|
33
|
20%
|
51
|
|
66
|
40%
|
102
|
|
99
|
60%
|
153
|
|
CC
|
80%
|
204
|
|
FF
|
100%
|
255
|
If you use these values for your Web colors, you should not
have to worry about any adverse affects when the colors are displayed on different
operating systems. However, if you use a value not within this 216 color range,
then the color may not look the same on different systems. Example, 9D99D2:
9D, which represents the red component, and D2, which represents the blue component,
are not hexadecimal values that are listed on the table above, so they are outside
of the 216 safe color range. You may want to change the red component to 99,
which is close to the 9D value and the blue component to CC, which is the closest
value to D2 on the table. This would result in 9999CC, which is a safe color.
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