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Comment by corty | Hacker News Reader

This might all be true for paintings, but on a screen, #000 isn't black. It is usually a dark gray, depending on the backlight and contrast of your screen. And even with OLEDs, it might be darker, but it isn't really black. So imho, no need to be afraid of black for screen design.

As for print, it depends on the process. Anything that composes colors from CMYK pixels will look ugly and blurry if you do not use pure colors e.g. for fonts at low resolutions or close up. Just compare black fonts and dark brown or grey fonts out of a color laser printer for an example.

So no, only avoid black if it is really black you are avoiding and if it doesn't cause other problems.

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Something that tripped me when setting up a new monitor was dealing with also the software set rgb range (0-255 or 16-235). By default I didn't get true(er) blacks because it clamped from below to 16.

Black isn't the total absence of light in the first place. It's just a relative absence of light.

It works the same way for paintings, screens, oleds, etc. So when the author is talking about "black" they're using it in the same way that a normal person would talk about "black"--it's a very dark color.

In that interpretation, the authors point is even less valid. In that case he just advocates substituting a dark color by a less dark one, wrecking contrast and thereby acccessability.

> In that interpretation, the authors point is even less valid.

The author's point is quite valid. #000 is a bit harsh and should be used sparingly.

> In that case he just advocates substituting a dark color by a less dark one, wrecking contrast and thereby acccessability.

That's pretty dramatic... just by swapping out black for a dark color you wreck contrast? No, that's wrong.

Check out the WCAG guidelines. Recommended contrast ratios for body text are 3:1 (minimum), 4.5:1 (level AA), or 7:1 (level AAA). The linked article uses #113654 on #FFFFFF, which has a contrast ratio of 12.5:1, which meets the highest level of the accessibility guidelines for body text contrast.

Meanwhile HN has text #828282 on #F6F6EF with a 3.54:1 contrast ratio. Barely meets minimum contrast guidelines for people with good eyesight. HN even features some #AFAFAF text, with a barely-readable 2.02:1 contrast ratio.

>Meanwhile HN has text #828282

To clarify a bit... the #828282 is for some header info like story url domain in (parentheses) next the title, HN user names, relative timestamps, etc.

The main body text of comments which is the majority of content is #000000 total black and because of that, the high contrast makes it very readable. I hope HN never succumbs to fads and copies other websites that think it's stylish to use hard-to-read gray text on white or off-white backgrounds.

I see and partly agree with your point, but to be fair to the author one interesting advice he gives is to use not only a less dark color but to choose a hue and increase saturation, so it's not just a "neutral" less dark grey.

A screen is a good example where you shouldn’t use black.

Here’s a similar article with pixel art examples:

http://samkeddy.com/pixel-art-outlines-part-2-using-color/

That's very narrowly focused on pixel art. You're reading and writing black text right now, and it's much easier than grey on grey. Screens are an excellent place for black.

For text...but that’s not what the article is about

Well it seems like it is; the article's biggest demonstration of its rule is its blue text. (And it practically breaks it with a large patch of 2% brightness in the author's photo, which of course looks good.)

Is the K in CMYK black, though?

I had an HP Deskjet that you had to swap out the color CMY cartridge for the black cartridge, otherwise black was a dark green.

My newest printer is CMYK and the black is crisp.

CMYK doesn't have just one black. A couple examples listed here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_black

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