We develop an empirical color-based standardization for Type II supernovae (SNe II), equivalent to the classical surface brightness method given in Wesselink. We calibrate this standardization using SNe II with host galaxy distances measured using Cepheids, and a well-constrained shock breakout epoch and extinction due to the host galaxy. We estimate the reddening with an analysis of the B-V versus V-I color-color curves, similar to that of Natali et al. With four SNe II meeting the above requirements, we build a photospheric magnitude versus color diagram (similar to an H-R diagram) with a dispersion of 0.29 mag. We also show that when using time since shock breakout instead of color as the independent variable, the same standardization gives a dispersion of 0.09 mag. Moreover, we show that the above time-based standardization corresponds to the generalization of the standardized candle method of Hamuy & Pinto for various epochs throughout the photospheric phase. To test the new tool, we construct Hubble diagrams for different subsamples of 50 low-redshift (cz < 10(4) km s(-1)) SNe II. For 13 SNe within the Hubble flow (cz(CMB) > 3000 km s(-1)) and with a well-constrained shock breakout epoch we obtain values of 68-69 km s(-1) Mpc(-1) for the Hubble constant and a mean intrinsic scatter of 0.12 mag or 6% in relative distances.