Please Stop Using Grey Text

Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by DemocracyFTW2 on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:27AM (#31421438)

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.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by noisem4ker on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:37AM (#31421513)

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.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by kuschku on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:39AM (#31421526)

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.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by jraph on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:51AM (#31421624)

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.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by kuschku on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @09:07AM (#31422297)

> 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 want accurate colors because setting it up is a pain, and switching between accurate and inaccurate colors takes your eyes quite a while to readjust.

It’s much easier to just have everything in an accurate color mode and have content designed for that than to switch it around.

Proper color profiles are actually even more of a benefit for cheap displays than good displays as cheap displays profit from proper colors even more.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by elzbardico on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @11:00AM (#31423643)

Yes, for you, who needs accurate colors for what you do, I assume. For the rest of us, it is not such a problem.

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Re:Please Stop Using Grey Text by atoav on Wednesday May 18, 2022 @07:39AM (#31421524)

Imagine what colors devs would choose if instead of defining white as "the brightest thing any given monitor can spit out" they would just specifiy some absolute value in e.g. Lumen per mm² and the screen tries to actually reach or maintain that value.

The issue with color on screens is a bit like the loudness wars in audio mixing: everybody tries to use the available bitspace to the max, because this made some sense in the days of 16 bit (or lower) audio. Nowadays much more dynamic delivery would be possible (with dynamic reduction as a user preference), yet there is no real, well designed system for such things in place.

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