Considering the exceptions of layout, and typography, color perhaps has had the profoundest impact on the creation and designing of websites- from presenting the visuals using images, to choosing different colors to give your website the feel of a particular era, for instance, neon green takes you straight to the ambience of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound of Silence’. The following article is the perfect manual for those who come across certain problems while working with CSS colors. With a variety of tools and color charts, this guide looks forward to help you with your working with color values. 

• Exploring the theory and psychology of simple color
• Examining the various options that are available.
• Analyzing examples of basic codes for different colors.
• Examining several factors like transparency, opacity and others.

The best start would be with a brief introduction to some of the elemental color associations. Colors are more than what they just appear to the eye. Colors tend to create an impact that is long lasting. Psychologists and designers agree that colors affect the way in which a user responds to a page, and participate in affecting the user’s intentions of purchase. A large number of studies and articles have come up regarding the color theory. Therefore, pursuing a career in this arena is no longer needs to be given a second thought. 

Very often, the human mind may be sub-consciously, tends to associate different colors with different things present in our surroundings. The association may depend of various factors like experiences from personal life, say, for instance, the color red may be associated with the feeling of love, as well as anger, or the image of blood. The impact of using colors on a website page is a kin to the impact created by a painter who uses a plethora of colors to capture his audience. If one wishes to create, say a matrimonial website, using bright colors like red and golden, or white seems more appropriate rather than using dull colors like grey, or black or brown, for red, golden and white have been conventionally associated with the very idea of wedding. 

The standards of color association set up by the West, however, must not be generalized, because different cultures have their respective modes, instruments, or symbols associated with different colors. Another factor that is very often considered in color theory is the temperature, the color white usually stands for freezing things, while, the brightest of the yellows, or orange or shades of red symbolize heat. Our eyes kind of suit themselves with this conventional theory, and as soon as the weather report says that the day is going to be bright, we immediately visualize the sun pouring out its yellow rays. More than often the color theory is regarded as a process that is psychological, largely because of its tendency to taint our perception of the world that we live in.

A variety of notations come in handy while one is working with CSS. The important point remains in choosing what way suits him/her best, keeping in mind the setbacks such as the compatibility among the browsers. 

Our imagination contributes, to a large extent, to the parochial nature of color. With the release of a variety of displays, there have been abundant choices available to the users. They can choose from these displays which let the users choose from more than a million number of color. These new displays have surpassed the old ones in which the user was provided only with   256 colors. 

The catch lies in the identification of the correct shade that is used in one’s code, after which among the many color values; the pattern used for description is functional in determining the exact requirement, in the required form and place. For the proper working of CSS, the user must be aware of the RGB, hex, and HSL equivalent of every color.  

Among the various methods of description of color, majority of users choose to use the hexadecimal value, which either has three or six digits, the characters beginning with the ‘#’ (hash). The format that is used in this method is that of the RGB notation. For example, the value for the color pink is, #HHHHHH, and it can be abbreviated as #HHH*.

*the example is hypothetical.   

The main reason behind the popularity and preference of this method over the old system would undoubtedly be its brevity. This is achieved successfully because this system supports a plethora of characters, including green, black, red, blue, and others. 

The other method of value notation, that is, RGB has been in existence, just as long as the hex codes. Because of the popularity of these hex codes, the RGB ones often remain unnoticed. In fact, RGB is actually a derivative of the very first specifications, ever used in CSS. The colors in RGB are restricted to green, red and blue, and the range of its numerals lies between 0 and 225. RGB lets you use percentages as well, which makes comprehending one’s choices easier.  

A new entrant in the CSS family would be HSL Value notation. It is a multi-functioning method that lets you create an amalgamation of the hue, brightness, and saturation. Thus, it largely functions as a complementing hand for the RGB value notation. 

In this method the shades can be made lighter or darkened, by merely adding to or subtracting from the base value, of a particular hue. The process, therefore, becomes a lot easier. 

The hues of different colors are mentioned in the unit of degrees, while the values of saturation and brightness are measured in percentages.