Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
GIF
GIF files use index color. Index color consists of 216 common colors found on
all computer monitors and within all Web browsers. These common colors
reside in a Web palette. The Web palette of colors is available in Macromedia
Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop so they can be used in design of Web screens
without variance of color when the pages are on the Internet. Also, the Web
palette is the standard color palette in Macromedia Dreamweaver and
Macromedia Flash. This allows us to achieve consistent color across Web
applications and Web browsers.
We use Web colors for:
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Web text/HTML text
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Web page backgrounds
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Web page colors used for table or layer backgrounds
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Web links
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GIF files
JPG
JPG files use red, green, and blue (RGB) for graphical color. RGB color is also
known as full color. Full color items include bitmap graphics or photographs.
We want to utilize photographs as much as we can within a Web portfolio to
add to the visual rhetoric and the narrative that we are trying to present.
Extensive use of photographs, especially their manipulation in programs such
as Adobe Photoshop, require a brief description of the RGB color model. RGB
color is known as additive color because of all colors, red green, and blue were
added together at their full intensity that would create pure white. The mixtures
of the relative strengths of these colors, “create the millions of colors computer
monitors can show” (Kimball, 2003, p. 95). The strength of these colors is set
in from zero to 255 with zero being the least intensity and 255 being the highest
intensity. When red, green and blue are combined at zero intensity the result is
black. At full strength, high intensity, where the values are set at 255, 255, 255,
the result is pure white. To remember this, here is a simple metaphor. Think of
the red, green, and blue as light switches. Each light switch using a slider has a
