Re: the 216 colour safe palette

by simone(at)genesisnetwork.net (Demitrius)

 Date:  Mon, 5 Jan 1998 10:06:20 -0800
 To:  "Alun Phillips" <PhillipsA2(at)cardiff.ac.uk>,
<hwg-graphics(at)hwg.org>
  todo: View Thread, Original
Hi Alun,

>I was just wondering if people if the majority of people still use it,
>or whether they are in effect assuming that the majority of their
>target audience have systems that can handle 16 million colours.

For what it's worth, I am out in the field pitching my web development
services 2 to 3 times per week. I meet with the "average web surfer" face to
face. Most have systems capable of True Color, however, their displays are
set to 256. Why? Because that's how they're set from the factory and IMO
most people do not know - or desire to - change the settings. BTW, most are
set to 640 x 480 res too.

The very first thing I do when sitting at a prospects computer is ask, "What
screen resolution and color depth are you running?"  I *always* get back a
blank stare. Always. The reason I ask them is because I want my examples to
show well, so I offer to change their settings for them. They always agree.

Next comment I *always* hear; "Wow! Everything looks so clear now! I didn't
know you could do that!"  True story.

One more thing. If my prospect/client is on AOL I *always* uncheck the
Compressed Graphics box in the Preferences settings. This is because AOL
uses a proprietary image format (*.art) that further compresses all images
for the sake of speed at the expense of image quality. Net result: fuzzy
looking graphics - at best. Unchecking this box will force the browser to
download normal graphics, and everything looks much, much better.

Regards,
Demitrius >I<
------------------------------------------------A. Demitrius Lopez
       W  E  B  S  I  T  E     D  E  V  E  L  O  P  E  R
MrDemitri(at)aol.com   http://members.aol.com/mrdemitri/
------------------------------------>I<------------------------------------

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