Photograph-Based Artwork

Photographs are the one type of artwork that really do not benefit from using browser-safe colors. The reason is that the browsers convert photographs, but do a great job of it, unlike the terrible job they do with hexadecimal-based artwork and illustration-based artwork.

Here are some comparisons that support this case:

This is an image saved with an 8-bit adaptive palette viewed on an 24-bit system

This is an image saved with an 8-bit adaptive palette viewed on an 8-bit system

This is an image saved in millions of colors, and viewed on a 24-bit system

This is an image saved in millions of colors, and viewed on an 8-bit system

This is an image saved in the Mac System Palette viewed in an 8 or 24-bit environment

This is an image saved in browser-safe colors, and viewed in 8 or 24-bit.

As you can see, nearly all the images viewed in 8-bit systems are the same, regardless of what palette they were mapped to. It's always best to save photographic images in adaptive or 24-bit file formats, such as JPEG and PNG, and let the browser do the color reduction itself. This way you do not penalize those lucky viewers who can see the work in 24-bit or thousands of colors.

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