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>The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. Hardly. If one is going to claim to be a designer (or profess to have wisdom enough t

>The issues you mention are outside of the scope of a shortish blog post. Hardly. If one is going to claim to be a designer (or profess to have wisdom enough to have a "design tip") then you sure as hell better understand why what you're suggesting is in any way true, ever. If you don't understand the 2nd order explanation (at least) you've got no business trying to explain it to the masses – because you don't understand the boundary conditions. If you do understand those boundary conditions, it should be reflected in the shared explanation, within reason. Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Pulling back slightly, even from a novice's perspective, the admonishment to never use black is just wrong. The point is/should be that contrast is important, but too much contrast can also be bad. Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. That is something that happens all of the time, in digital media and otherwise. So, trying to tell anyone that "black is bad" without an explanation leads to stupid design decisions that are made because of incomplete or woefully imprecise understandings of one's audience. You may be okay with that, but I think it's sloppy. It's the stuff that cargo cults and fads are made of – and I expect better from smart people like the author.

tripzilch 14y ago
> Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Reading the article I was really hoping he'd mention this--I don't think it's pedantic at all, #000000 on a monitor is not "black" in real life, for similar reasons as his pretty saturated shadows are not. As you say, it's all about contrasts. And once you use #000000, you can't shade anything darker than that. > Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. But in that case the pure #000000 black is actually a stand-in for a really dark colour that the monitor (or other medium) cannot produce. Although, I suppose, there are probably instances where #000000 is exactly the colour you need, but because it's on the far corner of the RGB cube chances are it's probably clamped or rounded-down for something else. Still, in those situations, #000000 is the best you can do.

tripzilch 14y ago

> Further, as explained in that post, the idea is wrong. It's about contrast (and, thus, dynamic range) more than it is absolute color. Indeed, if one wanted to be pedantic, they could point out that #000000 isn't actually real black and that no human has ever actually produced a truly black object. If one wanted to be slightly less pedantic and more particular, one could note that #000000 has a fuzzy meaning anyway as you're depending on the sensor of the image device (when/if it's captured) and then the output device – the rendering of black points (and whites) isn't the same on almost any two devices. Reading the article I was really hoping he'd mention this--I don't think it's pedantic at all, #000000 on a monitor is not "black" in real life, for similar reasons as his pretty saturated shadows are not. As you say, it's all about contrasts. And once you use #000000, you can't shade anything darker than that. > Black can easily be used in such a way as to not yield overly contrasted images – it just needs to be paired with another color sufficiently dark so as to keep contrast low enough to be acceptable. But in that case the pure #000000 black is actually a stand-in for a really dark colour that the monitor (or other medium) cannot produce. Although, I suppose, there are probably instances where #000000 is exactly the colour you need, but because it's on the far corner of the RGB cube chances are it's probably clamped or rounded-down for something else. Still, in those situations, #000000 is the best you can do.