which gray is best for print?

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 20:36:45 -0700, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> 	So you're saying that the "white" on my [monster] CRT is not the
> 	same as on a future LCD Display?  rats:)  

Exactly. And compare the "black", too, best way to differentiate
with CRT and LCD side by side with a fullscreen color "black".



> --I can't see much
> 	difference in my new laserjet from my HP500 DeskJet, but then it
> 	wasn't a main concern ... .

Human perception is another thing. Just because *I* can't notice
something, it doesn't imply that (1) others can't and (2) it isn't
there. In order to make a human person *feel* the change of a
sensory input is linear (e. g. the light intensity increases), you
need to increase the actual input in a logarithmic way.

http://www.neuro.uu.se/fysiologi/gu/nbb/lectures/WebFech.html



> 	I took all 5 quarters of physics, like most of us, but never got
> 	far into optics.

Physics comes in 5 quarters? 5 * 0.25 = 1.25... :-)



>  And certainly, nothing like *this*.

I learned about this when I studied psychology and computational
visualistics, but the RGB vs. CMY stuff (additive and subtractive
color combination) was part of the basal school education in the
GDR.



>  the
> 	quality of my writing is much more important that the colors of
> 	typeface or background.

I really applaud this attitude. You won't find them very often
across the web, sadly, because "style is more important than content".
I've seen things, man, ...



>  But this is an interesting side-bar.

It's a very important topic to know about when you're doing DTP
stuff. Exact color calibration is very important in this field.
So you can understand why there's still a niche market for quality
CRT monitors and quality printing devices. Of course, color
temperatures and other settings like contrast and brightness
are to be considered, too.



> 	Really!  So far, in my tests [staring at a CRT], I find an
> 	off-white reads most easily against a very dark blue. 000033;
> 	or whatever 333366 is.  Still experimenting.

it's very individual how colors are percepted. If someone with
deuteranopia looks at certain color combinations where others
may say: "Looks good!", they could say: "I don't see text there."

At least for printed material, black on white is good, and it
even can be used for projection media (beamer).

When I was at university, some guys put up a presentation with
black text on dark bluie background, 10pt serife font. Bah!
Unreadable in the last row.



-- 
Polytropon
>From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...