This article describes the steps you can use to select the "web smart" colour range and set the specific colours on any of the Site Colour Options pages, for setting the colours of Frames, Backgrounds, Page Text, Links and Mass Settings for your studio or art pages. In the first part of this article, we dealt with setting your colours using the "web safe" colour range.

A bit of background
Some years ago, when computers supported a maximum of 256 different colours, a list of 216 "Web Safe Colours" was suggested as a Web standard, reserving 40 fixed system colours.

The 216 cross-browser colour palette was created to ensure that all computers would display the colours correctly when running a 256 colour palette.

This is not important today, since most computers can display millions of different colours. On the MyArtClub site you will see reference to "web safe", "web-smart" and "unsafe" colour ranges. What is meant by these terms is relatively how many computers will see, or not see, the colours you have chosen correctly:

Name of colour range	Colours Available to pick from	Percentage of computers that can not read a colour
Web Safe	216	0.0% (none)
Web Smart	4,096	Less than 0.4%
Unsafe	16,777 216	7.0% and falling

(Source http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm)

If you are not sure what colours you should use, "Web Smart" has a reasonable amount of choice, and low risk.

Some Important Tips
If you have been using colour selections limited only to 216 web safe colours, all the names were entered as "named" colours, e.g. 'Azure Blue'. With the larger selections, only codes are used, so it is no longer intuitive what colour to pick. Use the colour palette instructions below to pick a colour code.

Once a new colour range is specified, any change to update a colour to a new code will erase the older colour range settings. Should you want to remember what colours you used before you changed the colour range, write down or copy the current settings now.

All colours must be from the same range, i.e. you can only pick codes available in the colour range you have selected. You can not be set up on "Web Smart", and then try to include an "Unsafe" colour.

How to set your website colour range
On the "Artist Colour Options" page:

1. Pick "Web Smart" from the list of options: Web Safe, Web Smart, or Unsafe
2. Confirm selection by clicking on the button below "Update Artist Colour Options"

How to access the colour palette for choosing colours

1. Look at the line just below where you selected the colour range
2. Click on the words "colour palette" in the phrase:
   "Click here to bring up the
   colour palette
   in a separate window."

Using the Web Smart colour range
If you have chosen the "Web Smart" option, you will see the following page"

If you hover over the colour wheel in the middle of the panel, you will see a sample of the colours as represented in each of the three modes Web Safe, Web Smart, and Unsafe below.

How to pick a colour
On the colour circle in the middle of the panel click on a colour to pick one. The square to the right of the circle now shows, for the last picked colour, a variety of choices for saturation and hue.

Each colour that you select is tracked in the list on the left column. You can reset this left side list by clicking on the "reset pick list" button above the list.

If you see a colour you want to use, you must write down the colour code number. These numbers are represented by the "#" sign followed by 6 digits ( between 0 – 9 and a-f). To see the colour code numbers for all of your colour picks click on the "show full list" link just below the colour square on the left.

Copy the colour code for the colour you selected, e.g. #ff2266 from the column "web smart".

How to apply the selected colour to your site
Switch back to your Update Site Colour Options Page. To update a colour selection paste or enter in the code, e.g. #ff2266 in the entry box for each of your desired colour selections i.e. Frame, Background, Page Text, Links, etc.

Remember to note your current colour settings; once you have made one colour change for the new colour range, you lose all the prior colour settings from the old colour range, as those are incompatible with the new colour range selected. Colours not reset will move to white as a default within the new colour range.

After you complete your colour choices, click the button below "Update Artist Colour Options" and your new selections are in effect. The page text, background and other colour choices will change to reflect the selections you have made.