Colours as they appear in different monitors

Gazza wrote:
: Try right clicking on your desktop -> Properties->Settings->Advanced->
: Color Management(or something similar for your gfx card), then finding
: the name of any color profile you have set, then copy it across to the
: laptop, then repeating the above path to add and use the newly copied
: color profile...

Do you mean like high color, true color, etc? Changing the settings changed
how some background images appear, but it didn't change these colours. It
was an interesting exercise, though.

Thanks,
Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Lois wrote in message ...
 > However, on my laptop, colours look quite
 > different.

I have just the same problem, as even though I don't yet have a laptop I'm
looking for one with an *excellent* screen which compares to the CRT I'm
currently using at home and work.

Laptops have inferior screens and just don't hack it when compared to a
conventional CRT monitor.

I posted my queries on various *laptop* newsgroups and one that came out
very well (if you're looking to upgrade), is the Fujitsu 5010.

Here's the thread if you wish to follow it. <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://tinyurl.com/2s9kf" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/2s9kf</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Steve R wrote:
: Laptops have inferior screens and just don't hack it when compared to a
: conventional CRT monitor.

I was afraid of that. Laptops and flat screens for desktops are
becoming more common.


: I posted my queries on various *laptop* newsgroups and one that came out
: very well (if you're looking to upgrade), is the Fujitsu 5010.
:
: Here's the thread if you wish to follow it. http://tinyurl.com/2s9kf

Thanks. My concern is not how the sites appear on my laptop, though, but on
other laptops. If I use #cc0099 for part of the background and some viewers
are reminded of candy floss when they see it, the site is not going to give
the first impression that I intended. Ditto with the yellow background. I
have a site about accommodation in Cuba, and I chose the yellow background
to give the feeling of sunshine. With a white background, the site looks too
plain, and more like snow than sunshine. But a brighter shade of yellow is
too bright for desktop monitors.

Thanks for your help,
Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Lois wrote:
 > On my desktop computer, and just about every other computer I've used,
 > colours look more or less the same if you don't count adjustments for
 > brightness and contrast. However, on my laptop, colours look quite
 > different. They're much lighter, and medium and light colours often
 > appear as white.
 >
 > Examples:
 >
 > #cc0099 is a rich, dark pink in most computers, almost burgundy. But
 > on my laptop, it's a sickly candy-like pink.
 >
 > #ffffcc is a soft yellow, suitable for backgrounds. But on my laptop,
 > a background with this colour appears white.
 >
 > Is it just my laptop? I've used another flat screen computer once,
 > and I didn't notice any big difference with colours with that
 > computer. My laptop is the same age as my desktop, BTW (Win 98 etc.).
 >

There could be a whole shed-load of differences in the installations
(hardware/drivers etc...) but the most likely is colour depth setting - did
you check?

btw: it's probably not a big deal as long as the difference doesn't screw
with readability - contrast etc.

--
William Tasso<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

William Tasso wrote:
: There could be a whole shed-load of differences in the installations
: (hardware/drivers etc...) but the most likely is colour depth setting -
did
: you check?

Yes, and I said in another post, changing the colour depth setting made
background images appear different, but it didn't affect these colours. It
could be to do with hardare/drivers/flat screen etc.


: btw: it's probably not a big deal as long as the difference doesn't screw
: with readability - contrast etc.

Hmmm. I agree that readability is the most important factor here, but I'm
concerned about first impressions from the colours. With the increase in the
use of laptops and flat screen desktop monitors, I wonder if I should be
trying to choose colours that look good via both types of monitors. Your
thoughts?

Thanks,
Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Lois wrote:
 > William Tasso wrote:
  >> ...
 > changing the colour depth setting
 > made background images appear different, but it didn't affect these
 > colours.

I don't understand how that can happen - maybe an expert will happen by this
thread.

 >
  >> btw: it's probably not a big deal as long as the difference doesn't
  >> screw with readability - contrast etc.
 >
 > Hmmm. I agree that readability is the most important factor here, but
 > I'm concerned about first impressions from the colours. With the
 > increase in the use of laptops and flat screen desktop monitors, I
 > wonder if I should be trying to choose colours that look good via
 > both types of monitors. Your thoughts?

Well yes, I suppose you should at least try to minimise any negative impact
and AFAIK there is no way to detect the difference from the server. There
are some old laptops around here someplace - I'll dig one out and fire it up
when I get a minute. Do you have a URL?

--
William Tasso<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

: Lois wrote:
: > changing the colour depth setting
: > made background images appear different, but it didn't affect these
: > colours.
:
William Tasso responded:
: I don't understand how that can happen - maybe an expert will happen by
this
: thread.

Which part? An example of a background image I was referring to was a
background for the menu where the colour changed from darker to lighter (but
not enough to affect readability). It looks blotchy or non-gradient-like
with the monitor set to fewer colours.


: >> btw: it's probably not a big deal as long as the difference doesn't
: >> screw with readability - contrast etc.
: >
: > Hmmm. I agree that readability is the most important factor here, but
: > I'm concerned about first impressions from the colours. With the
: > increase in the use of laptops and flat screen desktop monitors, I
: > wonder if I should be trying to choose colours that look good via
: > both types of monitors. Your thoughts?
:
: Well yes, I suppose you should at least try to minimise any negative
impact

I guess this subject doesn't come up very often then.


: Do you have a URL?

For an example of #cc0099 (dark pink), see the temp page at
www.wordsweave.com. I'm not planning on using that colour as background for
text when the site is ready, but I was thinking about using it for part of
the background until I saw what it looks like on my laptop.

An example of #ffffcc (soft yellow) for the background is at
http://casa.wordsweave.com/ (linked to from the above page). On my desktop,
it's yellow; on my laptop, it's white.

Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

"Lois" <auto-newsgroups DeleteThis @wordsweave.com> wrote in message
news:wa55c.5719$CI3.3714@fe03.usenetserver.com...
 > Steve R wrote:
 > : Laptops have inferior screens and just don't hack it when compared to a
 > : conventional CRT monitor.
 >
 > I was afraid of that. Laptops and flat screens for desktops are
 > becoming more common.
 >
 > Thanks. My concern is not how the sites appear on my laptop, though, but
on
 > other laptops. If I use #cc0099 for part of the background and some
viewers
 > are reminded of candy floss when they see it, the site is not going to
give
 > the first impression that I intended. Ditto with the yellow background. I
 > have a site about accommodation in Cuba, and I chose the yellow background
 > to give the feeling of sunshine. With a white background, the site looks
too
 > plain, and more like snow than sunshine. But a brighter shade of yellow is
 > too bright for desktop monitors.

I have run across something that may be similar. I recently switched to a
new PC, a desktop with a high-quality flatscreen (LCD) display, and the
first thing I noticed was that the reds were so much more intense, with
#ff0000 looking brilliantly scarlet. On one site, where I had a background
that was a pale, creamy parchment colour on my old (CRT-based) PC, the
background became pale, pinkish candy floss on my new PC.

This introduces interesting design challenges.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

"C A Upsdell" wrote:
: I have run across something that may be similar. I recently switched to a
: new PC, a desktop with a high-quality flatscreen (LCD) display, and the
: first thing I noticed was that the reds were so much more intense, with
: #ff0000 looking brilliantly scarlet. On one site, where I had a
background
: that was a pale, creamy parchment colour on my old (CRT-based) PC, the
: background became pale, pinkish candy floss on my new PC.
:
: This introduces interesting design challenges.

It gets even more, er, interesting. I was just at
http://www.alistapart.com/. The background is clearly green on my desktop
computer, but on my laptop, it's clearly blue. Colours can change not just
to different shades, but to completely different colours.

BTW, how did the webmaster get that background effect (from darker to
lighter) at that site? I tried to imitate that effect with 2 shades of dark
blue, but I couldn't get it to work.

Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Lois wrote in message ...
 > Thanks. My concern is not how the sites appear on my laptop,
 > though, but on other laptops.

I always take a couple of colour reference files with me on a floppy disc
or a CD to check on laptop screens as it's important to me that pale greys,
creams, yellows etc are distinguishable as they are currently on my iiyama.
Not many laptops that I've studied so far can reproduce those test colours
to my satisfaction.

Here's the files if anyone's interested in similar experiments.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.myby.myby.co.uk/test.htm" target="_blank">http://www.myby.myby.co.uk/test.htm</a>

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.myby.myby.co.uk/colours.gif" target="_blank">http://www.myby.myby.co.uk/colours.gif</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Lois auto-newsgroups.TakeThisOut@wordsweave.com wrote:
 >
 > Hmmm. I agree that readability is the most important factor here, but I'm
 > concerned about first impressions from the colours. With the increase in the
 > use of laptops and flat screen desktop monitors, I wonder if I should be
 > trying to choose colours that look good via both types of monitors. Your
 > thoughts?
 >

yes...bear in mind also that a large number of people are colour blind

don't rely on precise rendition of colour...pick colours that also give a
strong dark/light contrast...and if you are using colour to have an
emotional effect on the user (as one should) don't rely purely on the
choice of colour to do it

after that just go for it...you can't get consistent replication of colour
for all users, so don't bust a gut trying to find a way to do so...you'll
eventually get a feel for how colour varies on the different types of
monitor, and it's worth testing with a range, but it's not something you
can control or even work around

--
eric
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ericjarvis.co.uk" target="_blank">www.ericjarvis.co.uk</a>
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

In article <ZQ75c.5891$CI3.3705@fe03.usenetserver.com>, auto-
newsgroups.TakeThisOut@wordsweave.com says...

 > BTW, how did the webmaster get that background effect (from darker to
 > lighter) at that site? I tried to imitate that effect with 2 shades of dark
 > blue, but I couldn't get it to work.

They used the image at <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.alistapart.com/d/i/btgrdk.gif" target="_blank">http://www.alistapart.com/d/i/btgrdk.gif</a> and
repeated it in the horizontal direction.

--
Gazza
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.rossmore.org/" target="_blank">http://www.rossmore.org/</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.garyjones.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.garyjones.co.uk/</a>
"Some people don't listen, they simply wait to speak"<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors 

Eric Jarvis wrote:
: yes...bear in mind also that a large number of people are colour blind

A useful tool is at http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php. It
lets you see how pages appear to people who are colour-blind.


: don't rely on precise rendition of colour...pick colours that also give a
: strong dark/light contrast...and if you are using colour to have an
: emotional effect on the user (as one should) don't rely purely on the
: choice of colour to do it

I agree, but I'd like to make sure that colours aren't working for me in
some monitors and against me in other monitors.

Lois
 >> Stay informed about: Colours as they appear in different monitors