# A list of the 26 most differentiable colors?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-list-of-the-26-most-differentiable-colors/653422>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 20, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-list-of-the-26-most-differentiable-colors/653422 "2013-03-20T03:18:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Comander\_Joans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b77776/32.png) [@Comander\_Joans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Comander_Joans)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-list-of-the-26-most-differentiable-colors/653422/21 "2013-03-20T17:04:17Z")

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Thanks everyone! Will take a look at all of this for a few days and hopefully not burn my eyes out 🙂

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**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-list-of-the-26-most-differentiable-colors/653422/22 "2013-03-21T05:14:29Z")

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I read a paper once where the researchers were mapping exactly 26 colors. They created an alphabet of maximally distinguishable colors, then encoded text in color squares and taught people to read. It worked, but they commented that 26 was at the outer limit of what was distinguishable, even under carefully controlled conditions with constant background color and illumination.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a citation.

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-list-of-the-26-most-differentiable-colors/653422/23 "2013-03-21T11:07:50Z")

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I notice that the colors **cmyk** posted leave room for black and white backgrounds (i.e., allow 28 colors in all, if those background colors count).

[Here’s a palette of 26 colors](http://s19.postimage.org/n6ddq459v/26colors.gif) with black and white included.

> [@ZenBeam](#):
>
> One issue I haven’t seen mentioned is that you may need a different set of colors for viewing on screen and for printing. Those will look different, and you could get a set you like, print it, and have it look bad. Even with separate colors for screen and printing, it may vary from monitor to monitor, or from one printer to the next.

Very important point. … And one reason I didn’t try too hard to tune the above palette: improving it on my monitor might make it worse on yours.

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