5 ms·

I don't use dark mode for contrast, I use because a lot of software "light mode" is just plain white. And screens been getting more and more powerful. Often us

I don't use dark mode for contrast, I use because a lot of software "light mode" is just plain white. And screens been getting more and more powerful. Often using software without white mode the thing is so bright, that the walls near me get lighted up as if I was using a flashlight or something. Thus I have to make the screen less bright, but often this also make the screen colors and contrast get all screwy and I still can't see anything. I miss Win 9x era grey interface... it wasn't beautiful but I could actually see stuff.

Groxx 3y ago
... Ya know, I haven't thought about that before, but screens are a lot brighter now aren't they. I wonder how much of the dark mode thing is just that the old good defaults are now eye-burningly bright, so of course people don't like them as much.
- franga2000 3y ago
  Screens can get brighter now, but if your screen is too bright, that's entirely on you. Adjusting the brightness is trivial and you can even do it without using the buttons on the display (DDC/CI).
  - TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
    On the contrary, some new monitors are so bright even on their lowest setting that you have to find alternative solutions.
    - layer8 3y ago
      That’s really just bad tech not fit for the purpose, though.
      - poszlem 3y ago
        Oh, okay, problem solved then.
        layer8 3y ago
        I mean, don’t buy those. There are enough suitable monitors on the market.
        CRConrad 3y ago
        Sure, if you're made of money. Not everyone is.
        petsfed 3y ago
        About 3 years ago, I actually did research about monitors before buying one, for the first time in my tech-using life (which started around 1990, as I recall). Up until that point, it was never a question of "what is the best monitor for my application?", but rather "what's the biggest, highest-resolution monitor in my (pitiful) price range, that Best Buy (or whoever) has on hand right now?" That's pretty much the issue here in a nutshell.
        layer8 3y ago
        It began for me 15 years or so ago when backlights started to make high-pitched noises and 16:10 monitors started to become less common. It’s been rough since for various reasons, but brightness not going low enough isn't something I've experienced as a widespread issue. SRGB mode is pretty dim at 120 cd/m², so monitors usually are able to go at least that low, and typically much lower.
    - magicalhippo 3y ago
      I have a (marginally) HDR monitor, and I run Windows 10's HDR mode. Immediately it was noticeably blander than non-HDR, but I've quite grown to like it. I find it very pleasant to use for long stretches for work and such. When I play games I get the vivid colors and contrast so all good.
      - robotnikman 3y ago
        Interesting, I have an HDR monitor but never tried actually using the HDR function. It does seem to make a difference and feels nicer on the eyes. I'll have to see how it affects games too.
        mmis1000 3y ago
        Windows map sdr color in HDR mode in the way that srgb profile monitor display sdr color. So it is actually what it intended to be. It's just that monitors nowadays don't even default to SRGB profile. Windows in hdr mode with hdr monitor(vesa certified) and windows in sdr with a monitor set to srgb mode should have an almost identical visual.
  - mgbmtl 3y ago
    Sometimes when using Wayland on my laptop, I have to switch back to X11 just because Wayland has no way of controlling the contrast. (I tried searching a few times, no luck..)
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    "Too bright" depends entirely on the context. I control-tab and alt-tab like a maniac these days (might reduce that by getting a fourth display, used to think that would be excessive but the Overton window has shifted and I'm coming around on the idea). The default UI here on HN features your username in #828282 on a background of #F6F6EF [1], a contrast ratio of 3.54:1. The up and downvote arrows are #999999 on #F6F6EF [2], a ratio of 2.62:1. On a high-brightness screen, these less-intense contrasts look great. And this is far from the only place with 'nice calm greys' that are intentionally used by designers to reduce eye strain. I run Visual Studio in dark mode, and Windows Explorer in dark mode, and Notepad++ in dark mode, and Omron Sysmac Studio in dark mode, and Autocad Electrical in dark mode, and Alibre CAD at the default (light gray) theme, and they look great. I'm in a nice, bright office, with (4) daylight 4' T8 LED bulbs directly overhead, and a whiteboard as the backdrop to my monitors, so it's not like I'm a recluse in a dark cave. The monitor brightness is not wrong. At least, it's not wrong until I win-right or alt-tab over an Excel document or an old version of Studio 5000, where the color profile is stuck at black text on a white background. Then I'm instantly blinded. I can't set half the monitor (just the part over the Excel spreadsheet) to the right contrast and brightness to make Excel acceptable, because then I can't see better-designed apps. And don't get me started on opening up a movie or game after work's done. "Set your brightness so the logo is barely visible." Yeah, no. "Game of Thrones is a cinematic show and therefore you have to watch it like you’re at a cinema: in a darkened room." Wagner and Snyder are watching their productions on studio-grade OLEDs. I won't put a show on the integrated screen of my old Thinkpad or Precision laptops, I know those displays are trash (and they're small, I only put stuff that's easy to see on them), but no brightness setting on my relatively nice IPS LCDs can comfortably handle the diversity of content they're used to display. [1] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=828282&bcolor=F6F6EF https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=828282&... [2] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=999999&bcolor=F6F6EF https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=999999&...
  - VoodooJuJu 3y ago
    This is something that has always boggled my mind. >Gee, this stark white brightness is hurting my eyes, maybe I should turn down the brightness on my display... >Nah, I'll just demand every single company completely overhaul the CSS and contrast of everything while begrudgingly suffering the eye-burning whiteness of companies that haven't yet overhauled their CSS Like wtf?
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      If everyone would design against properly calibrated monitors it would be fine, you could just set it to the standard calibration, but they don't so there is no universally good brightness you'd never need to change for. It's like webpage sizes, if everyone built and tested their UIs at the standard physical screen scaling then you would run into a lot less variance in website sizes.
      - Groxx 3y ago
        If everyone had calibrated monitors and every app and website was the same brightness, yes. Instead, it varies wildly, often for good reasons... and then switching windows exposes you to extreme shifts. E.g. switch between photograph editing and a giant white text document, nothing's gonna save you then - stuff that looks correct and good for photography is absurd when most of your screen is the same as the sun. Calibration is one thing, perceived brightness of the whole screen with specific content is another. And it's heavily influenced by how many nits are available.
        zamadatix 3y ago
        Calibration in this case isn't about providing "and so everything then looks like it's the same brightness, because it's calibrated" it's about "and so the same modifications can be applied to everything consistently, because it's all calibrated". I.e. just lowering the brightness a bit below the intended value now is impossible. One thing built on a monitor with it's brightness curve undercalibrated and one with its brightness curve overcalibrated will look two different kinds of wrong when shifted by such a transform. That would not be the case with calibrated sources, everything would shift in the same way and you're able to have it look "wrong" (i.e. darker, capped, brighter, whatever) exactly the way you want, consistently. Taking it to the DPI example, having things built at a standardised DPI isn't about making everything appear the same physical size it's about making everything tuned against a consistent physical size for the exact same reason, default is always intended and your global adjustments are always consistently resulting in the source material being larger than intended or smaller than intended instead of "well, depends how uncalibrated the source was if it's still smaller or larger than intended".
  - vonjuice 3y ago
    My phone's lowest brightness is way too high for night use (yes even with a blue light filter), it's super annoying.
    - Groxx 3y ago
      Yeah - I'm glad Android finally has the "extra dim" mode to reduce that with oleds (only barely effective with LCDs), but it comes at the cost of awful contrast. Lower output is much better in comparison. I like being able to see my phone in sunlight nowadays, but there have definitely been some tradeoffs.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > screens are a lot brighter now aren't they. No. You just use them in the dark.
  - Zekio 3y ago
    screens output way more nits these days, I remember not being able to see a screen properly because a lamp was on due to the monitors only having 200ish nits, these days you can get +1000 nit monitors, this is especially true for HDR monitors
    - speeder 3y ago
      You just reminded me of something funky. To play PS5 I bought a monitor instead of a TV, because the place where I had to install the screen in the rented apartment is tiny, and tiny TVs are just crap with tons of input lag. So I got a gaming LG monitor. Many PS5 games, specially those with HDR support, offer help in adjusting the brightness, often in the form of showing a very dark and a very bright image side by side, and telling you to adjust your settings until both are visible. I found out that no matter what I do, this never happens. In the end the best setting is when NEITHER are visible. If the dark image is visible, the screen is so bright it feels like staring into a flashlight. If the bright image is visible, the screen is so dark that I can't see the contents of the screen with my curtains open or the lights turned on. I can't wrap my head around how someone can make a screen be so crap.
      - kuschku 3y ago
        Cheap LG monitors have contrast turned up too high. Turn it down and you'll be able to have both visible at the same time.
      - lozenge 3y ago
        It looks better in the showroom under retail lighting. Take a look through all the settings.
  - abofh 3y ago
    No. I suffer from an eye pigment issue, meaning bright actually hurts. Old screens don't hurt even on white. New screens physically hurt. You, however, should stay in the dark.
wkat4242 3y ago
True. I use my screen with 0% brightness during the day and I have to reduce contrast during the night (which leads to reduced colour depth). Using dark mode is unavoidable for this reason. Display manufacturers should really not just look at the maximum brightness but also the minimum.
anjel 3y ago
...with light light blue labeled data fields against a white background. Its nothing less than sadistic. Thanks Redmond, may I have another?
panzi 3y ago
Yeah, I run my monitor at 20% brightness, unless for watching movies. Then I change to 50%. Wish it would had presets. Anyway, I prefer the ever so slightly beige Interface of Windows 2000. Same contrast and GUI esthetics, but less drab grey.
WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> a lot of software "light mode" is just plain white. And screens been getting more and more powerful. Yep. Without darkmode, my screens light up my neighbors fence like those Appalachian backyard streetlights. ( because powerpole streetlights were popular in rural backyards ref: https://assets.landandfarm.com/resizedimages/10000/0/h/80/1-5054420280 https://assets.landandfarm.com/resizedimages/10000/0/h/80/1-... )
gattr 3y ago
I've been using dark themes whenever possible for a few years now, but recently realized much of unpleasantness of light mode comes for me from it being too blue w.r.t. the ambient lighting conditions. Playing with the slider in "Night Color" under KDE or "Night light" under Windows does the trick.
- kps 3y ago
  Or change your monitor's colour temperature setting. It probably defaults to 6500K, and you want something in the 5000K–6000K range.
  - gattr 3y ago
    But the SW sliders are much more convenient; say, at work the desirable blue light level varies quite a lot (e.g., a sunny afternoon with blinds half-closed vs. a rainy morning), and a smooth adjustment is very nice to have.

Groxx 3y ago

... Ya know, I haven't thought about that before, but screens are a lot brighter now aren't they. I wonder how much of the dark mode thing is just that the old good defaults are now eye-burningly bright, so of course people don't like them as much.

franga2000 3y ago
Screens can get brighter now, but if your screen is too bright, that's entirely on you. Adjusting the brightness is trivial and you can even do it without using the buttons on the display (DDC/CI).
- TazeTSchnitzel 3y ago
  On the contrary, some new monitors are so bright even on their lowest setting that you have to find alternative solutions.
  - layer8 3y ago
    That’s really just bad tech not fit for the purpose, though.
    - poszlem 3y ago
      Oh, okay, problem solved then.
      - layer8 3y ago
        I mean, don’t buy those. There are enough suitable monitors on the market.
        CRConrad 3y ago
        Sure, if you're made of money. Not everyone is.
        petsfed 3y ago
        About 3 years ago, I actually did research about monitors before buying one, for the first time in my tech-using life (which started around 1990, as I recall). Up until that point, it was never a question of "what is the best monitor for my application?", but rather "what's the biggest, highest-resolution monitor in my (pitiful) price range, that Best Buy (or whoever) has on hand right now?" That's pretty much the issue here in a nutshell.
        layer8 3y ago
        It began for me 15 years or so ago when backlights started to make high-pitched noises and 16:10 monitors started to become less common. It’s been rough since for various reasons, but brightness not going low enough isn't something I've experienced as a widespread issue. SRGB mode is pretty dim at 120 cd/m², so monitors usually are able to go at least that low, and typically much lower.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    I have a (marginally) HDR monitor, and I run Windows 10's HDR mode. Immediately it was noticeably blander than non-HDR, but I've quite grown to like it. I find it very pleasant to use for long stretches for work and such. When I play games I get the vivid colors and contrast so all good.
    - robotnikman 3y ago
      Interesting, I have an HDR monitor but never tried actually using the HDR function. It does seem to make a difference and feels nicer on the eyes. I'll have to see how it affects games too.
      - mmis1000 3y ago
        Windows map sdr color in HDR mode in the way that srgb profile monitor display sdr color. So it is actually what it intended to be. It's just that monitors nowadays don't even default to SRGB profile. Windows in hdr mode with hdr monitor(vesa certified) and windows in sdr with a monitor set to srgb mode should have an almost identical visual.
- mgbmtl 3y ago
  Sometimes when using Wayland on my laptop, I have to switch back to X11 just because Wayland has no way of controlling the contrast. (I tried searching a few times, no luck..)
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  "Too bright" depends entirely on the context. I control-tab and alt-tab like a maniac these days (might reduce that by getting a fourth display, used to think that would be excessive but the Overton window has shifted and I'm coming around on the idea). The default UI here on HN features your username in #828282 on a background of #F6F6EF [1], a contrast ratio of 3.54:1. The up and downvote arrows are #999999 on #F6F6EF [2], a ratio of 2.62:1. On a high-brightness screen, these less-intense contrasts look great. And this is far from the only place with 'nice calm greys' that are intentionally used by designers to reduce eye strain. I run Visual Studio in dark mode, and Windows Explorer in dark mode, and Notepad++ in dark mode, and Omron Sysmac Studio in dark mode, and Autocad Electrical in dark mode, and Alibre CAD at the default (light gray) theme, and they look great. I'm in a nice, bright office, with (4) daylight 4' T8 LED bulbs directly overhead, and a whiteboard as the backdrop to my monitors, so it's not like I'm a recluse in a dark cave. The monitor brightness is not wrong. At least, it's not wrong until I win-right or alt-tab over an Excel document or an old version of Studio 5000, where the color profile is stuck at black text on a white background. Then I'm instantly blinded. I can't set half the monitor (just the part over the Excel spreadsheet) to the right contrast and brightness to make Excel acceptable, because then I can't see better-designed apps. And don't get me started on opening up a movie or game after work's done. "Set your brightness so the logo is barely visible." Yeah, no. "Game of Thrones is a cinematic show and therefore you have to watch it like you’re at a cinema: in a darkened room." Wagner and Snyder are watching their productions on studio-grade OLEDs. I won't put a show on the integrated screen of my old Thinkpad or Precision laptops, I know those displays are trash (and they're small, I only put stuff that's easy to see on them), but no brightness setting on my relatively nice IPS LCDs can comfortably handle the diversity of content they're used to display. [1] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=828282&bcolor=F6F6EF https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=828282&... [2] https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=999999&bcolor=F6F6EF https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=999999&...
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  This is something that has always boggled my mind. >Gee, this stark white brightness is hurting my eyes, maybe I should turn down the brightness on my display... >Nah, I'll just demand every single company completely overhaul the CSS and contrast of everything while begrudgingly suffering the eye-burning whiteness of companies that haven't yet overhauled their CSS Like wtf?
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    If everyone would design against properly calibrated monitors it would be fine, you could just set it to the standard calibration, but they don't so there is no universally good brightness you'd never need to change for. It's like webpage sizes, if everyone built and tested their UIs at the standard physical screen scaling then you would run into a lot less variance in website sizes.
    - Groxx 3y ago
      If everyone had calibrated monitors and every app and website was the same brightness, yes. Instead, it varies wildly, often for good reasons... and then switching windows exposes you to extreme shifts. E.g. switch between photograph editing and a giant white text document, nothing's gonna save you then - stuff that looks correct and good for photography is absurd when most of your screen is the same as the sun. Calibration is one thing, perceived brightness of the whole screen with specific content is another. And it's heavily influenced by how many nits are available.
      - zamadatix 3y ago
        Calibration in this case isn't about providing "and so everything then looks like it's the same brightness, because it's calibrated" it's about "and so the same modifications can be applied to everything consistently, because it's all calibrated". I.e. just lowering the brightness a bit below the intended value now is impossible. One thing built on a monitor with it's brightness curve undercalibrated and one with its brightness curve overcalibrated will look two different kinds of wrong when shifted by such a transform. That would not be the case with calibrated sources, everything would shift in the same way and you're able to have it look "wrong" (i.e. darker, capped, brighter, whatever) exactly the way you want, consistently. Taking it to the DPI example, having things built at a standardised DPI isn't about making everything appear the same physical size it's about making everything tuned against a consistent physical size for the exact same reason, default is always intended and your global adjustments are always consistently resulting in the source material being larger than intended or smaller than intended instead of "well, depends how uncalibrated the source was if it's still smaller or larger than intended".
- vonjuice 3y ago
  My phone's lowest brightness is way too high for night use (yes even with a blue light filter), it's super annoying.
  - Groxx 3y ago
    Yeah - I'm glad Android finally has the "extra dim" mode to reduce that with oleds (only barely effective with LCDs), but it comes at the cost of awful contrast. Lower output is much better in comparison. I like being able to see my phone in sunlight nowadays, but there have definitely been some tradeoffs.
hulitu 3y ago
> screens are a lot brighter now aren't they. No. You just use them in the dark.
- Zekio 3y ago
  screens output way more nits these days, I remember not being able to see a screen properly because a lamp was on due to the monitors only having 200ish nits, these days you can get +1000 nit monitors, this is especially true for HDR monitors
  - speeder 3y ago
    You just reminded me of something funky. To play PS5 I bought a monitor instead of a TV, because the place where I had to install the screen in the rented apartment is tiny, and tiny TVs are just crap with tons of input lag. So I got a gaming LG monitor. Many PS5 games, specially those with HDR support, offer help in adjusting the brightness, often in the form of showing a very dark and a very bright image side by side, and telling you to adjust your settings until both are visible. I found out that no matter what I do, this never happens. In the end the best setting is when NEITHER are visible. If the dark image is visible, the screen is so bright it feels like staring into a flashlight. If the bright image is visible, the screen is so dark that I can't see the contents of the screen with my curtains open or the lights turned on. I can't wrap my head around how someone can make a screen be so crap.
    - kuschku 3y ago
      Cheap LG monitors have contrast turned up too high. Turn it down and you'll be able to have both visible at the same time.
    - lozenge 3y ago
      It looks better in the showroom under retail lighting. Take a look through all the settings.
- abofh 3y ago
  No. I suffer from an eye pigment issue, meaning bright actually hurts. Old screens don't hurt even on white. New screens physically hurt. You, however, should stay in the dark.

wkat4242 3y ago

True. I use my screen with 0% brightness during the day and I have to reduce contrast during the night (which leads to reduced colour depth). Using dark mode is unavoidable for this reason. Display manufacturers should really not just look at the maximum brightness but also the minimum.

anjel 3y ago

...with light light blue labeled data fields against a white background. Its nothing less than sadistic. Thanks Redmond, may I have another?

panzi 3y ago

Yeah, I run my monitor at 20% brightness, unless for watching movies. Then I change to 50%. Wish it would had presets. Anyway, I prefer the ever so slightly beige Interface of Windows 2000. Same contrast and GUI esthetics, but less drab grey.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago

> a lot of software "light mode" is just plain white. And screens been getting more and more powerful. Yep. Without darkmode, my screens light up my neighbors fence like those Appalachian backyard streetlights. ( because powerpole streetlights were popular in rural backyards ref: https://assets.landandfarm.com/resizedimages/10000/0/h/80/1-5054420280 https://assets.landandfarm.com/resizedimages/10000/0/h/80/1-... )

gattr 3y ago

I've been using dark themes whenever possible for a few years now, but recently realized much of unpleasantness of light mode comes for me from it being too blue w.r.t. the ambient lighting conditions. Playing with the slider in "Night Color" under KDE or "Night light" under Windows does the trick.

kps 3y ago
Or change your monitor's colour temperature setting. It probably defaults to 6500K, and you want something in the 5000K–6000K range.
- gattr 3y ago
  But the SW sliders are much more convenient; say, at work the desirable blue light level varies quite a lot (e.g., a sunny afternoon with blinds half-closed vs. a rainy morning), and a smooth adjustment is very nice to have.