CSS Colors: Depend on Monitor?

Question

Do CSS colors render differently on different monitors? Most importantly, will tools like Digital Color Meter (on OS X, an eye dropper, if you will) give me a different hexcode depending on the monitor or graphics card?

Answer 1

PCs and Macs will indeed render colours somewhat differently, though not necessarily because of the monitor.

For example, a Mac will render the colour #FEFEFE in the browser whereas a PC will render it white, as though it were #FFF.

Answer 2

You shouldn't get different hex values based on monitor, but you will get different final results depending on OS, monitor, graphics set, and settings.

Answer 3

In short: Yes and No.

The exact color values are always the same. The exact rendering, however, varies.

• For one, there is color depth: With color depths of 8, 15 or 16 bit an approximation of the specified color has to be used. Sometimes even with dithering.
• The monitor itself might have very different color rendering, depending on its settings. Can be seen very easily if you have two monitors side-by-side. They'll never show the exact same colors.
• The color profile affects the color rendering too. Most people don't calibrate their monitors, though.

Answer 4

The colors,independently of language used to display them, usually render differently from monitor to monitor, this is due to different technology that allows a different color space (profile) to be shown. You will never be able to have the exact same colors on all of the monitors, in fact on CRT and LCD monitors colors show differently most of the time.

I don't know DCM so I guess you'll have to try but it would be much better if you try to look for a palette that is best shown on most of monitors, maybe trying to look at it on a CRT and LCD of different producers.

Answer 5

No. A colour always remains the same. However, physically realising a colour may depend on the display, the materials used to display, the lighting, and almost an infinite array of things.

The eye dropper tool will always inform the correct colour. Since displays differ, the colour (visually) will differ among them. However, in theory the colours are the same everywhere. If you select a red colour with the eye dropper and draw an image and share it, it will be rendered as red by the graphics adapter in all systems (unless they are very buggy!). If the display lacks the red components, or the red component is faulty, the colour displayed will not be red. Programmatically, the colour is still red.

When developing for the web, or doing graphics work, always check with a couple of different displays to make sure that you indeed selected the colour that you wanted, as displays differ.

Answer 6

The colors,independently of language used to display them, usually render differently from monitor to monitor, this is due to different technology that allows a different color space (profile) to be shown. You will never be able to have the exact same colors on all of the monitors, in fact on CRT and LCD monitors colors show differently most of the time.

I don't know DCM so I guess you'll have to try but it would be much better if you try to look for a palette that is best shown on most of monitors, maybe trying to look at it on a CRT and LCD of different producers.

Answer 7

The computer is in control of the color numbers, so the numbers will not change no matter what monitor or graphics adapter you have.

The monitors will look different though. There are many reasons for this; even two of the same model monitor might not look identical, especially if the settings have been changed. Most of the time they will be similar enough that nobody will complain. There are calibration systems you can purchase to bring them closer to a standard appearance.