Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Selecting Web-Safe Colors

If you are making graphics from scratch, especially graphics such as logos or simple illustrations that contain areas of flat color, you can use web palette colors right from the start. The major drawback is that with only 216 colors to choose from (a good 30 of which you wouldn’t be caught dead using for anything), the selection is extremely limited. The trick is to have the web palette colors loaded into the Swatches palette or in whatever device your graphics program uses for making colors handy. You should be aware, however, that even if you select web colors for fills, any shades of colors created by soft drop shadows or anti-aliased edges between areas of color probably will not be web-safe.