Web Design in a Nutshell

Color Blenders

The problem with the Web Palette is that it only has 216 colors to choose from (and they probably wouldn’t be your first choices). If you are bored with your color options, you may want to try a new type of graphics utility called a color blender. Color blenders approximate any RGB color by mixing two colors from the Web Palette in a tiny checkerboard pattern. You can use these “hybrid colors” to fill areas of graphics or to create a background tile.

Two color blender tools exist as of this writing: ColorSafe from BoxTop Software (http://www.boxtopsoft.com/ ) and DitherBox from RDG Tools (http://www.ditherbox.com/). Their features and interface are nearly identical, but DitherBox is somewhat less expensive. DitherBox is also now included as part of Adobe ImageReady 1.0. You can download free demo versions for either the Mac or Windows at their respective sites.

The Pros and Cons of Color Blenders

No technology is either all good or all bad, so let’s look at the ups and downs of color blenders:

Color blender advantages

• They allow you to choose colors off the beaten path of the 216-color web-safe palette, yet still be certain they will look the same on 24- and 8-bit monitors.

Disadvantages

• The controlled dither can add to the file size if used as a fill for large areas of the graphic.

• It is more difficult to get inline images to blend seamlessly over a background tiled with a hybrid color. For instance, an image with a hybrid blue background may not line up correctly ...