A friend of mine who is a web designer, not a jeweler, read
Hanuman’s post to this thread and responded with the following:
The 256-screen color palette is strickly dinosaur stuff. My
Dell computer (which is about 5 years old and far from
‘state-of-the- art’) can’t even set its display to anything
less than 16-bits (at least the driver - NVIDIA GeForce2 MX -
doesn’t offer that option). So 8-bit color isn’t even an
option, much less the default! You buy a computer today and it
will arrive almost unvaryingly with ‘true color’ (32-bit)
selected. Maybe if you’re worried about people in Mozambique or
Afganistan viewing your web graphics, you’d bother with a
little concern about what colors you select for your basic
website layout - but…
The question was about pictures looking ‘dark’ - not dithered.
This is a common problem, as most people are clueless about
how to set their display’s brightness control to its proper
setting. A site like http://www.displaycalibration.com/ can
help people set the brightness on their display, and adjust
for best color rendition as well. If you’re publishing photos
on the web that you are worried may appear too dark on
mal-adjusted monitors, you should provide a link to such a
site in your introductory paragraphs and encourage your
viewers to make use of it. That’s the only solution to the
problem asked.
It’s Latvian to me, but I hope it helps someone!
Lisa Orlando
Aphrodite’s Ornaments
Hi Lisa,
A friend of mine who is a web designer, not a jeweler, read
Hanuman's post to this thread and responded with the following:
The 256-screen color palette is strickly dinosaur stuff. My Dell
computer (which is about 5 years old and far from 'state-of-the-
art') can't even set its display to anything less than 16-bits (at
least the driver - NVIDIA GeForce2 MX - doesn't offer that option).
So 8-bit color isn't even an option, much less the default!
I suspect your web designer friend may be swayed by a little too
much computer sellers hype. Whilst most new computers are fine with
a large colour palette there are still a vast number of people using
‘antiquated’ or ‘custom’ computers that are limited. Strangely
enough academia is populated by many people who, against
expectations, are effectively technophobes or computer geeks who
look upon the modern, games oriented systems as just a load of
flim-flam and frippery and not for serious users! I even know of
several who will not even entertain graphics and work on text only
machines connected to the 'net by ancient modems. It is often these
types, of course, who think of themselves as ‘individuals’ and who
are likely to seek out custom designs for their loved ones. Then you
must also consider those people who have an understandable aversion
to Microsoft and its half-made products and also to users in other
parts of the world where the best computers available still use the
good old 386 chip - perhaps they will not be your direct customers
but surely is it not only polite to allow them to see your wares and
maybe learn from them. I think if you seriously look around the more
professional commercial web sites you will find that most still
conform to the standard web pallette and restrict thier useful
screen resolution to 640 x 480 pixels so as to get the biggest
audience. Its the same with fonts, unless your text is converted to
a graphic file, it is pointless using fonts which are not in the
basic Microsoft or Mac set - your message may be totally unreadable
to a large number of your audience. I think that this is one of the
problems with living in a technologically advanced society, we tend
to forget that the rest of the world is still trying to catch up.
Best Wishes
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK
Thanks, Ian. I’ll forward your post to my friend–lots of food for
thought. I still like his idea of offering a calibration link, but I
wonder if the same “individuals” might be loathe to use it…
Lisa Orlando
Aphrodite’s Ornaments