[thelist] What Hex Do *You* Get?

[Ben Henick]

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Gina Anderson wrote:

> After reading some of the results, I started messing with my display in just
> the brightness setting. I turned my brightness setting to 100%, and then
> down to like "0" (which didn't make my screen black, just way darker) and
> even added a low low contrast---I was only off 1 point or two through the
> RGB values--even when the colors looked so different. That doesn't make much
> sense to me--why would a "screen color picker" pick up almost the same
> values when adjusting the display so much?

Pointing back to the same 16/32 bit v. 24 bit issue...

If I create a swatch of color in Photoshop (say, by selecting and filling)
at one color depth, take a screen cap, switch video settings, and re-check
the value, the copied value may well change.

To make things even more interesting, an image with a bgcolor of {x}
created in video settings other than 24 bit may well show up with slight
contrast on a page with a bgcolor also of {x}.  Given that an uncalibrated
Photoshop install is biased toward color representation best suited for
print development, I am not surprised.

>From here, I get the hunch that a long discussion of Photoshop's video
hardware interface and calibration plugins could ensue - if any of us knew
the first thing about what's under the hood.  Any takers?  (Not me.)

Seriously, a lot of this points back to color-depth issues.  I swear it, I
do!

If I discover anyone who runs in anything other than 24 bit, I won't think
twice about bending their ear about how on the Web, color is a 24 bit
animal and they really ought to default their hardware settings to 24
bit.   (The only reason I know of for defaulting to other settings has to
do with games, and most games will change hardware settings
automatically.)


--
Ben Henick                     "In the long run, men hit only what they aim
Web Author At-Large             at.  Therefore, though they should fail
http://www.io.com/persist1/     immediately, they had better aim high."
persist1 at io.com                 -- Henry David Thoreau