5 ms·

> You should avoid using extremes like #000000 and #ffffff If it's too much contrast for you, maybe your screen is not setup correctly (too bright), or you do

by jraph 4y ago

> You should avoid using extremes like #000000 and #ffffff If it's too much contrast for you, maybe your screen is not setup correctly (too bright), or you don't zoom enough. Or your room is not correctly lit. Black on white should be comfortable. Don't force me to squint or to use way too much brightness sucking too much power to compensate for poor contrast. People are fine with office suites despite (thanks to?) them defaulting to black on white. We would have known by the time it if was an issue.

kqr 4y ago
I disagree. If you have a screen that is capable of showing high enough contrast that you can have true highlights and true blacks, then why should you make image quality worse just because someone else is unable to reproduce that? I guess the real problem is that there's no real standard for what #fff means – it has to be interpreted through a colour space, which in turn does not talk about brightness, I think.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Unless you are running with an OLED, reproducing #fff is really hard anyways. Just like unless you have e-ink, active lit #000 is going to basically be a light bulb.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    Reproducing #ffffff and #000000 is relatively possible on higher level monitors that have HDR support and full-array local dimming or a dual-layer LCD. While these monitors shine in HDR mode, most of them are also useful for getting a perfect SDR image out of them.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I think you are using those colors backwards from the way I usually see them (which made your sentence fairly difficult to parse).
- micahdeath 4y ago
  So, because I'm poor and can't afford such a monitor/screen, I will have a harder time reading your site or just give up and go somewhere else.
  - dspillett 4y ago
    > So, because I'm poor and can't afford such a monitor/screen, Done properly, moving away from #fff/#000 can be done in such a way that it looks excellent on better monitors and is usable, at very least not entirely unpleasant to read, on less capable ones. > I will have a harder time reading your site It not looking as nice for you is fine, as long as it is readable. If we held everything back to making sure it worked on all screens there would be a lot more plain-text-only sites/apps out there. A perfectly good option IMO, but try getting the general screen using public to agree with that! Even with a bad screen there are usually adjustments you can make to help. There are of course many pages out there that are too low contrast, or otherwise unpleasant, unless you are using a particularly good monitor setup a particular way for which… > or just give up and go somewhere else. … is a perfectly valid option. You don't owe them your attention, though likewise they generally don't owe you anything either.
  - Avamander 4y ago
    How about you modify your screen's gamma, calibrate it or install an extension to increase contrast? Why do I have to have my eyes blasted with insanely high-contrast text because my device follows the specs better?
maven29 4y ago
The root cause could possibly be that not all displays are capable of proper contrast in dark mode at a comfortable brightness for also displaying expanses of white. You would wear out the brightness controls in no time unless you go out of your way to mandate dark mode on everything. Another factor might be the dark adaptation of the iris, which could be helped by desk lights.
- hedora 4y ago
  I have never owned a monitor or phone without a brightness control. I challenge you to find any screen capable of displaying a paragraph that does not have a brightness adjustment. Any form factor (other than backlight-free stuff like ePaper and cheap calculators) will do, as long as it had top 100 market share in its segment at some point in this century. (Brightness is the adjustment that decreases the max white level without also making blacks brighter. So, a display that only has a contrast knob would count as missing a brightness adjustment.)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - maven29 4y ago
    In my experience with cost-optimized low-end LCD displays, changing brightness settings will more or less alter absolute contrast at the lower end as well. Even if the ratio stays the same, the darker shades suddenly are a lot more distinct as they just aren't consumed by artifacts and color shifts or even just glare anymore.
kuschku 4y ago
I use a color-calibrated screen and #000000 to #ffffff is a painful amount of contrast. Just because your screen is configured badly doesn’t mean we should make content unreadable for users with correctly calibrated screens.
- jraph 4y ago
  Well-calibrated but too bright? My screen is fine, probably as good as or better than what most people have. We can't optimize for the almost 0% of people who have calibrated screens to the detriment of the big majority of people.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    The brightness of a screen is also well-defined in the respective DIN norms for workspaces, which I’m following exactly. Those norms also set a limit for the maximum amount of contrast allowed at a workspace, which #000000 on #ffffff violates if it’s shown on a color-calibrated screen with standard brightness. > We can't optimize for the almost 0% of people who have calibrated screens to the detriment of the big majority of people. We can’t just change the meaning of what definitions and terms mean just because it’s easier than making everyone follow the standard. Create a color profile for your monitor, so your OS can compress contrast if your monitor isn’t powerful enough to reach the SDR sRGB specs.
    - danuker 4y ago
      Maybe if the standard weren't CHF 158 (right now equalling $158), more people would implement it. https://www.iso.org/standard/57992.html https://www.iso.org/standard/57992.html > that will ensure effective and comfortable viewing conditions for users with normal or adjusted-to-normal eyesight Sounds like it did not do so for you, in the case of non-compliant websites with your compliant display. I can't be bothered for my personal blog. $158 is my hosting cost for 3 years or so.
    - necovek 4y ago
      To help with "making everyone follow the standard", why don't you start describing what those "standard" screen settings are instead of only talking from the point of authority? Still, any standard prescribing "standard brightness" for office environments is bound to be nothing but a decent average or default. Even if there was biologically optimal display luminance, it would still depend on the environment lightning (which changes during the day if there's a single window in the room), and on the state of the viewers eyes (age, any visual problems or even temporary issues like tiredness), type of display...
DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
I don't think this is entirely right although it sounds logical at first. Modern displays can be extremely powerful in terms of back light intensity and contrast; you realize that when you switch on the average model from years ago. They need that power so users can watch videos with intentionally dark scenes and still be able to perceive details in less-than-ideal situations. It does not automatically follow that the maximum contrast is intended or ideal for other purposes such as reading text. I might add that office-type programs were developed at a time where 14 to 18 inch color CRTs were the latest and greatest. The image that modern flat screens deliver is much more dynamic and has way sharper edges, to the degree that maybe we should consider to artificially blur the entire display ever so slightly just so the higher Fourier frequencies get a bit less dominant.
- noisem4ker 4y ago
  Then unleash the full brightness when watching videos, and scale it back when reading text. Until we get HDR on the web, one sRGB size must fit all. At this point, accessibility and readability are top priority. You can always tone down your backlight, while someone else might have it at full blast and still not be able to read without squinting in the sunlight on a cheap display. I know who I'm more sympathetic to.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    You can not just tone down your backlight without having to measure the color profile of your monitor again. Which takes hours. As I’ve said countless times before, we’ve got OS support for tonemapping HDR content onto SDR displays, now we need OS support for tonemapping SDR content onto shitty displays.
    - jraph 4y ago
      I know nothing about color profiles, I'm surprised you can't just turn down brightness to read something comfortably and revert to the original level when you need accurate colors again. Or you want accurate colors all the time? But what for, if you are just reading an average document? I don't need accurate colors when reading text, but I need it to be comfortable. It seems having color calibration would actually suck for me if I can't adjust brightness depending on the weather, on the hour of the day, on the season, on whether I'm tired or not, or on the location I currently am, or on what I'm doing (reading, programming, or watching a video). I need to be able to adjust brightness without fuss. I guess I would buy dedicated hardware and put it in a well lit-controlled room if I needed accurate colors.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
> maybe your screen is not setup correctly (too bright) Maybe that's to compensate for low contrast content?
- Myndex 4y ago
  Yes often the case

by jraph 4y ago

kqr 4y ago

I disagree. If you have a screen that is capable of showing high enough contrast that you can have true highlights and true blacks, then why should you make image quality worse just because someone else is unable to reproduce that? I guess the real problem is that there's no real standard for what #fff means – it has to be interpreted through a colour space, which in turn does not talk about brightness, I think.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Unless you are running with an OLED, reproducing #fff is really hard anyways. Just like unless you have e-ink, active lit #000 is going to basically be a light bulb.
- kuschku 4y ago
  Reproducing #ffffff and #000000 is relatively possible on higher level monitors that have HDR support and full-array local dimming or a dual-layer LCD. While these monitors shine in HDR mode, most of them are also useful for getting a perfect SDR image out of them.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I think you are using those colors backwards from the way I usually see them (which made your sentence fairly difficult to parse).
micahdeath 4y ago
So, because I'm poor and can't afford such a monitor/screen, I will have a harder time reading your site or just give up and go somewhere else.
- dspillett 4y ago
  > So, because I'm poor and can't afford such a monitor/screen, Done properly, moving away from #fff/#000 can be done in such a way that it looks excellent on better monitors and is usable, at very least not entirely unpleasant to read, on less capable ones. > I will have a harder time reading your site It not looking as nice for you is fine, as long as it is readable. If we held everything back to making sure it worked on all screens there would be a lot more plain-text-only sites/apps out there. A perfectly good option IMO, but try getting the general screen using public to agree with that! Even with a bad screen there are usually adjustments you can make to help. There are of course many pages out there that are too low contrast, or otherwise unpleasant, unless you are using a particularly good monitor setup a particular way for which… > or just give up and go somewhere else. … is a perfectly valid option. You don't owe them your attention, though likewise they generally don't owe you anything either.
- Avamander 4y ago
  How about you modify your screen's gamma, calibrate it or install an extension to increase contrast? Why do I have to have my eyes blasted with insanely high-contrast text because my device follows the specs better?

maven29 4y ago

The root cause could possibly be that not all displays are capable of proper contrast in dark mode at a comfortable brightness for also displaying expanses of white. You would wear out the brightness controls in no time unless you go out of your way to mandate dark mode on everything. Another factor might be the dark adaptation of the iris, which could be helped by desk lights.

hedora 4y ago
I have never owned a monitor or phone without a brightness control. I challenge you to find any screen capable of displaying a paragraph that does not have a brightness adjustment. Any form factor (other than backlight-free stuff like ePaper and cheap calculators) will do, as long as it had top 100 market share in its segment at some point in this century. (Brightness is the adjustment that decreases the max white level without also making blacks brighter. So, a display that only has a contrast knob would count as missing a brightness adjustment.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- maven29 4y ago
  In my experience with cost-optimized low-end LCD displays, changing brightness settings will more or less alter absolute contrast at the lower end as well. Even if the ratio stays the same, the darker shades suddenly are a lot more distinct as they just aren't consumed by artifacts and color shifts or even just glare anymore.

kuschku 4y ago

I use a color-calibrated screen and #000000 to #ffffff is a painful amount of contrast. Just because your screen is configured badly doesn’t mean we should make content unreadable for users with correctly calibrated screens.

jraph 4y ago
Well-calibrated but too bright? My screen is fine, probably as good as or better than what most people have. We can't optimize for the almost 0% of people who have calibrated screens to the detriment of the big majority of people.
- kuschku 4y ago
  The brightness of a screen is also well-defined in the respective DIN norms for workspaces, which I’m following exactly. Those norms also set a limit for the maximum amount of contrast allowed at a workspace, which #000000 on #ffffff violates if it’s shown on a color-calibrated screen with standard brightness. > We can't optimize for the almost 0% of people who have calibrated screens to the detriment of the big majority of people. We can’t just change the meaning of what definitions and terms mean just because it’s easier than making everyone follow the standard. Create a color profile for your monitor, so your OS can compress contrast if your monitor isn’t powerful enough to reach the SDR sRGB specs.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Maybe if the standard weren't CHF 158 (right now equalling $158), more people would implement it. https://www.iso.org/standard/57992.html https://www.iso.org/standard/57992.html > that will ensure effective and comfortable viewing conditions for users with normal or adjusted-to-normal eyesight Sounds like it did not do so for you, in the case of non-compliant websites with your compliant display. I can't be bothered for my personal blog. $158 is my hosting cost for 3 years or so.
  - necovek 4y ago
    To help with "making everyone follow the standard", why don't you start describing what those "standard" screen settings are instead of only talking from the point of authority? Still, any standard prescribing "standard brightness" for office environments is bound to be nothing but a decent average or default. Even if there was biologically optimal display luminance, it would still depend on the environment lightning (which changes during the day if there's a single window in the room), and on the state of the viewers eyes (age, any visual problems or even temporary issues like tiredness), type of display...

DemocracyFTW2 4y ago

I don't think this is entirely right although it sounds logical at first. Modern displays can be extremely powerful in terms of back light intensity and contrast; you realize that when you switch on the average model from years ago. They need that power so users can watch videos with intentionally dark scenes and still be able to perceive details in less-than-ideal situations. It does not automatically follow that the maximum contrast is intended or ideal for other purposes such as reading text. I might add that office-type programs were developed at a time where 14 to 18 inch color CRTs were the latest and greatest. The image that modern flat screens deliver is much more dynamic and has way sharper edges, to the degree that maybe we should consider to artificially blur the entire display ever so slightly just so the higher Fourier frequencies get a bit less dominant.

noisem4ker 4y ago
Then unleash the full brightness when watching videos, and scale it back when reading text. Until we get HDR on the web, one sRGB size must fit all. At this point, accessibility and readability are top priority. You can always tone down your backlight, while someone else might have it at full blast and still not be able to read without squinting in the sunlight on a cheap display. I know who I'm more sympathetic to.
- kuschku 4y ago
  You can not just tone down your backlight without having to measure the color profile of your monitor again. Which takes hours. As I’ve said countless times before, we’ve got OS support for tonemapping HDR content onto SDR displays, now we need OS support for tonemapping SDR content onto shitty displays.
  - jraph 4y ago
    I know nothing about color profiles, I'm surprised you can't just turn down brightness to read something comfortably and revert to the original level when you need accurate colors again. Or you want accurate colors all the time? But what for, if you are just reading an average document? I don't need accurate colors when reading text, but I need it to be comfortable. It seems having color calibration would actually suck for me if I can't adjust brightness depending on the weather, on the hour of the day, on the season, on whether I'm tired or not, or on the location I currently am, or on what I'm doing (reading, programming, or watching a video). I need to be able to adjust brightness without fuss. I guess I would buy dedicated hardware and put it in a well lit-controlled room if I needed accurate colors.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

> maybe your screen is not setup correctly (too bright) Maybe that's to compensate for low contrast content?

Myndex 4y ago
Yes often the case