> Well, i read that `Windows' reserved some twenty colours of its own > and that combined to the `NetScape' story explains why i didn't get more > than six solid shades of grey in `PaintBrush', i guess. It makes sense!
Well, Windows will reserve those twenty, the other 236 are free for an application to define (remember, 256-colour modes are paletted modes) on a per-window basis usually. So, you could define a nice palette of 236 grey levels, and save that in a file, but when that's viewed by an application which won't or can't change its palette (browsers are one), the application will remap the colours to the nearest colour in the palette. > Thanks a lot for these clear explanations. Euh... But i would bet > i have seen more than six solid shades of grey in `GrafX v2.00', or it's > probably just a combination of greys with very slightly tainted greys... Yep; the application has configured the palette to include a large number of greys. This palette system is also the key to a number of animations, through a process called palette shifting -- you can cycle the colours being used so that areas of colour in the image 'move'. The same thing also leads to some nasty effects --f or instance, if you have a 256-colour mode set up, and have something using one palette in one window (say, Netscape browsing some colourful site) then fire up something that wants another palette (say, Encarta's opening screen), the colours Netscape will be using will change, so the image will look wrong. Once you switch back to Netscape, the system puts Netscape's palette back into effect. > Ha. Now i really begin to see the light! There are a couple other > properties of the pixel, as i recall. Would that be an other way to mix > the numbers than using RGB hex values or will it allow more grey shades? If you want something that should look right when viewed on any platform with 256 or more colours, stick to those 6 values; if you don't mind it looking a bit strange when viewed with only 256 colours, you can use any colour you like usually. Regards, Ben A L Jemmett. (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/, http://www.deltasoft.com/) To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
