Inspiring

Question

Save for Web Question

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 28, 2022
6 replies
1290 views

What do the little plus signs mean in the color swatches when using the Save for Web feature? (see attached)

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

scotwllmAuthor

Inspiring

I don't actually save the file. I just screengrab the colors in the color table.

scotwllmAuthor

Inspiring

I remember web-safe colors and recording SMTP files onto cassettes. I've used Photoshop since it first came out. The first version I used was free -- it came with some other software.

scotwllmAuthor

Inspiring

I use that feature to create a simplified palette for an image.

@mj

Community Expert

It is showing web-safe colours.

J E L

Community Expert

Interesting. Would that mean my test image has unsafe web colors?

rayek.elfin

Brainiac

The concept of safe/unsafe web colours is irrelevant nowadays. Back in the 90s computer graphics hardware was limited and couldn't produce more than 256 colours on-screen at 640x480 / 1024x768 resolutions, and with the advent of the web a colour palette of 216 entries was agreed on to prevent the GUI in Windows and MacOS from being affected by colour shifts. The GUI obviously required a set of fixed static colours to look correct.

The colours are still recognized by browsers, though, and many are actually named too!

At the time it was 'discovered' that only 22 of these 216 'web safe' could be reliably displayed without inconsistent remapping on 16-bit computer displays. These were called "the really safe palette".

Read up on the subject on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors

I grew up in the 80s, and started work with graphics on the C64. Limited resolutions and colour palettes were par for the course: 160x200@16 colours!

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

I believe that means the color is Web Safe or falls within the 256 colors that a Gif or PNG-8 is limited to.

(that's supposed to be a Diamond symbol)

Since the Save for Web plugin dates from photoshop 5.5 (circa 1999 and based on ImageReady which is older than that) it could also mean the colors fall within the standard 216-color color table common to Windows and Mac OS 8 bit (256-color) palettes.

Actually according to the photoshop help, Web Safe is based on the 216 Color palette.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/choosing-colors.html#choose_web_safe_colors

scotwllmAuthor

Inspiring

I assure you, it's a plus sign. I just double-checked.

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

Yes it sure looks like a plus sign, however, in the adobe help it refers to it as a Diamond

The Orginal Poster, that's you, is supposed to be the one that selects the correct answer.

If you meant to mark another response it can be changed.

J E L

Community Expert

@scotwllm I can't duplicate it. What are the color settings of your original image? Do you get these plus signs with any image you save this way? Maybe it has to do with the number of colors in the palette, suggesting there are more?

scotwllmAuthor

Inspiring

Alt-Shift-Ctrl S.

Image is a psd file. Mode is RGB 8 bit.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded