Month: June 2014

Color Accuracy

Maintaining color integrity from monitor to printed product is essential. As a photographer in the navy I had to make sure that the computer screens were correctly calibrated to the printed product. This was done periodically to maintain color integrity. Monitors have their own color calibration but this does not always completely solve the color accuracy problem. There were many stressful moments when the photo batches from the thermal printers were sent back by the supervisor due to incorrect hues. A simple calibration would had solved this.

This is where calibration devices come in handy. These are multipurpose auxiliaries that will calibrate the monitor color while taking into account the surrounding light sources. These devices come with their own software to make calibrating the monitor to the printed product more succinct.

Some calibration devices are the X-Rite, ColorVision and Datacolor Spyder.

from zonerama.com

 

Color Contrast

Color Contrast

Controlling contrast is a good method for establishing Hierarchy and dominance in a layout. When looking at the color spectrum on a black background, the eyes are drawn first to the colors with the highest luminosity, yellow and cyan. You might notice the dark blue later because it contrasts less with the black background.

If you then compare the same color spectrum surrounded by white, the lighter colors such as cyan and yellow do not stand out as much because they contrast less from the white background.

By understanding contrast, you can have a greater control over the impact that the layout elements such as color, font and imagery, have on your design.

You can use this tool http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ to check the contrast of your chosen foreground and background colors. It will tell you if your chosen colors pass or fail.