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Comment by chrismealy | Hacker News Reader

You know what else isn't black? The #000000 pixels on my laptop. For me #000000 usually the best for reading. I use this bookmarklet all the time to turn text black.

https://gist.github.com/chrismealy/7075460

I do like a nice gray, though.

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As a designer it's really useful to be able to save that #000000 for e.g. an emphasized section on your body text.

The big problem with off-black text is that the designers who advocate them rarely test their sites on monitors that are like the ones the consumers actually use. Something like 90% of the people looking at your website will do it through a monitor that has a crappy TN panel and an even more crappy backlight. Designers tend to gravitate towards good IPS panels because their colors are much more lifelike -- but this means that the designer never sees the site like most of his users do.

If you do web design you absolutely have to own a 2-3 year old TN panel with a CCFL backlight, and use it on stock settings, simply because that's what your customers use. #000000 on that is usually equivalent to #303030 or something on a good monitor. And #303030 is indistinguishable from your background color.

Well, 'avoid pure black' is as good a rule for design, as 'limit/compress your audio' is for music production. Both rules produce more 'polished' results, but both are kind of cheesy. Most professional audio engineers claim to prefer greater dynamics (though its rare outside classical recordings). Most professional photographers prefer glossy paper because you get deeper blacks (and whiter whites). I know that may strike some nerds as odd (matte displays prevent glare), but there is also a pro market for HDR displays, and 'true black' TVs/monitors.

I think using pure black is actually more analogous to compressing your audio. Excessive compression (+ normalization) maximizes the recording's volume in the same way that using pure black as your default body text maximizes contrast; in both cases, you're losing headroom that you could have reserved for parts that need emphasis.

You rule!

This is such a simple solution to combat incompetent designers who think they should never use black... No more fiddling in Firebug just so I can read some text at maximum contrast. Thank you! :)

I forgot who wrote it. I've been using it since 2004 at least.

That is the exact opposite of how I like to read. I much prefer lower contrast with dark background or, if I am forced to read a white background, to use f.lux to mute it in amber.

I use f.lux too. I actually like off-white backgrounds too. It's the gray on gray that gets to me.

Thank you. I've been doing that by hand.

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