Colors on the Web
Introduction
Colors on the web are specified by three numbers. The numbers for a given color indicate how much red, green and blue was used to create that color. The red/blue/green color scheme is often referred to as RGB. Most web designer define the numbers in hex (base 10) versus the decimal (base 10) system that humans typically use. Base 16 uses the values
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F
instead of the
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
used in base 10. In base 16, the biggest single digit value is F (the biggest single digit value in the decimal system is 9).
The strength of the red or green or blue part of a color is specified by two hex digits. The range is from 00 to FF. A value of 00 means that you don't want any of that color, and a value of FF means you want as much as possible of that color. The pairs of digits for red, green and blue are pushed up against each other, and usually preceded with a pound sign ('#"), so that the general form is:
#RRGGBB
where RR represents the two red digits, GG the green digits and BB the blue digits.
This system is a bit odd, since green is not a primary color. You would expect to have yellow instead of green (instead, you have to mix red and green to get yellow)!
Examples
| Hex RGB Value | Color |
|---|---|
| #00FF00 | Bright green |
| #FF0000 | Bright red |
| #0000FF | Bright blue |
| #000000 | Black (an abscence of any color makes black) |
| #FFFFFF | White (as shown with a prism, the combination of all colors makes white light) |
| #AA0000 | Slightly darker red |
| #770000 | Dark red |
| #330000 | So little red that the color is almost black |
| #FF00FF | Bright purple (red and blue mixed together) |
| #990099 | A darker purple |
| #FFFF00 | Yellow (red and green to get yellow?!) |