What is best 256 color palette?

[DawnBringer]

Define "Best".

[Piotr]

Define "Best".

Go to school! I need people to know how many grays, how much extent these colors are needed, etc. and you don't know what is even best for general use!!!

[RAV]

*sigh* I have an interest in this discussion, and if possible, I'd like it to somehow stay productive and informative.

Piotr is very young and new here. He did try and prepare himself for this though. Now he stumbled a bit. Maybe we can figure a way to keep it cool.

He seems to be looking for a straightforward solution and definite answer. The people that have posted here have a lot of experience with thinking colour spaces and palettes, technically and artistically. And DawnBringer has created general purpose palettes that are useful and popular. This includes a 256c palette. In his method of crafting them there are a lot of considerations. But even he knows there is just so much you can account for. In the end it's particular requirements and taste that dictate what's best. Maybe, if anything, it's a certain set of (sub?)palettes that's "best", together designed to cover a range of specific common applications, at least. Or we can take into account how conveniently the palette can be customized and extended. Can there be a versatile palette "seed" as system palette?

[Ai]

Define "Best".

Go to school! I need people to know how many grays, how much extent these colors are needed, etc. and you don't know what is even best for general use!!!

School won't help you define what palette is 'best'. There isn't such a thing as a universally 'best' 256-color palette, and the reason for that is that 256 colors is so much smaller than the number of colors people can distinguish between.
Like anything else, there are palettes that are 'best' for a specific purpose, and the more specific you can be, the closer you can approach 'best' (selecting colors that suit your application well).
How many greys are needed depends on application; what colors are needed and to what extent depends on application. etc.

If you will not define a specific application for the palette, there is no best palette, not even in theory.

[Piotr]

Define "Best".

Go to school! I need people to know how many grays, how much extent these colors are needed, etc. and you don't know what is even best for general use!!!

School won't help you define what palette is 'best'.

He doesn't know about what is anything best. Not only palettes. He just doesn't know meaning of word "best" itself. For DawnBringer, here you go: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Best&defid=5047406 (use definition 1)

[Ai]

That is not what he was saying. As his post history demonstrates, he is quite capable at using the English language.

[happymonster]

It also depends if you want to use the colours with dithering or not. For example a made a 256 colour palette designed for full HSV dithering (via a program) that gives good colour reduction results with a lot of dithering, but wouldn't be great to use without it..

[Seiseki]

Piotr don't be a dick.
Especially when you're the one asking for help..

[lachrymose]

@Seiseki: Considering it has been almost 10 days since Piotr has posted, I think your comment is past due in its context and it just feels like you are trying to instigate something.

[Seiseki]

I just saw the 'new post' icon, never looked at the date..
Honestly I felt like everyone was just tiptoeing around, which is why I said 'don't be a dick'.

But yeah you're right, I shouldn't have said anything..