https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=66021

--- Comment #7 from Isarra <[email protected]> ---
(In reply to Bawolff (Brian Wolff) from comment #5)
> Created attachment 16032 [details]
> Screenshot with a gamma adjustment of 3.0 to simulate what a crappy monitor
> would look like for those who don't have one
> 
> So google suggests monitors in the real world have gamma settings that can
> vary anywhere between 1.8 to 3.0 (Correct value being about 2.2) [Can anyone
> actually verify that? I could only find really sketchy old looking sources].
> 
> So I removed my custom css making everything black (I like being able to
> easily read the site :P), took a screenshot, and adjusted that gamma to 3.0
> to see what people with bad monitors would see. I adjusted by using convert
> screenie.png -gamma .454545 tmp.png; convert tmp.png -gamma 3.0
> Screenshot-gamma3.png

That screenshot looks very similar to the grey (#252525) text to me (on the
same monitor).

That's the main problem I'm trying to get at, though - gamma is an issue, but
there's a lot more to it than just the gamma. Even with differences in gamma,
defined black and white do tend to look pretty similar across devices (some may
be brighter or more black than others, but it is basically still black and
white), but how the contrast is handled in between those colours may be
completely different, resulting in the appearance of greys varying wildly. They
can potentially show up as anything between black and white, or even just AS
black or white. 

Examples:
* #444: Looks like a good dark grey background colour for displaying images
against (because it won't distract from the image, but will still result in
enough contrast to make out any black elements) on one screen. Just looks black
on another. #888, on the other hand, looks the same on both. So does #eee.
* #f6f6f6: Used, along with some light blue, to make the gradients in the
vector skin. Completely indistinguishable from white on one monitor. Tabs are
only distinguished by a small visible part of the blue gradient and the
borders, and even those are hard to make out.
* #222: Looks the same as #444 on one monitor. Obviously not the same colour.

These are monitors I have and use. Out of six, six are kind of crappy, just in
different ways (dead pixel, off red intensity, the above examples of weird
contrast; it varies), but these are also fairly standard consumer models (three
of them were apparently top-rated on newegg, or got labelled with some sort of
award there).

Unfortunately, while monitors are adjustable, because the hardware/software
of/for the device itself generally isn't very good in the first place, solving
for one problem usually just winds up with another. Some problems, of course,
are much more preferable to others (such as an overall level of contrast that
doesn't hurt the eyes, or a level of darkness that makes playing <insert
popular game title here> the most enjoyable), but there will always be
problems.

Here's the thing, though - we don't CARE if the subtleties of the vector skin
are getting lost for some people, or that the background colour a lightbox uses
just looks black on some displays. That doesn't really matter, because that
stuff is really just decoration. It'd be nice if people could see it, but if
not, whatever.

Text, though, we need people to be able to see well. Always.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
You are on the CC list for the bug.
_______________________________________________
Wikibugs-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikibugs-l

Reply via email to