Why is it so bright?

[Guest]

Defender's window uses the ultra bright white background. What's up with
that? All my other programs use the background specified in "Appearance".

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

Good one--that sounds like a bug--and perhaps one which will impact
accessability, if a user has chosen particular high-contrast schemes for
particular eye conditions.

 

[Guest]

My problem with the monitor's white is too much contrast. It's whiter than
white. If you hold a sheet of white paper beside a monitor displaying white,
you will see a big difference.

 

[Dave M]

Sorry, neither I nor my PaintShopPro photo editor set at 24-bit color can
see a difference between the defender screen white and the white on this
page your reading in text....

That is, pure white on the color spectrum:

Red: 255
Green: 255
Blue: 255

 

[Guest]

Yes, I wasn't clear. I was editorializing when I said ultra bright white.
The white on my monitor is a brighter white than a piece of white paper.
Well maybe that's because my room isn't well lit.

Anyway my monitor's white is too bright for me when used as the background.
This page does not have a white background on my monitor because I set the
background to something else in the "Appearance" window and told the browser
to use "system colors".

Your post looks like this on my computer:
http://www.hypercon.net/~blisscomm/Pictures/Microsoft/Defender/Clipboard01.jpg


And so does everything else, except Windows Defender, which looks like this:
http://www.hypercon.net/~blisscomm/Pictures/Microsoft/Defender/Clipboard02.jpg

 

[Guest]

Red: 255
Green: 255
Blue: 255

That's why it's so bright. 255 reds plus 255 greens plus 255 blues make
765 whites which is a lot of photons no matter how you slice it. Something
like 200, 200, 200 might produce a light gray that would be good, but I
figure why not go for color as long as it's free.

I just checked and I'm using 251, 242, 179. And for what it's worth Hue=35,
Sat = 216 and Lum=202 (whatever that means).

And thanks for your post. My post surely was confusing, and hopefully this
makes it clearer.

 

[Dave M]

Gotcha Steve,

I remember polarizing filters being popular a number of years ago... they
gave everything a muted look when you attached the film screen over the
monitor, but their real purpose was to prevent glare from overhead lights /
sunlight. You might consider one yourself to ease any eyestrain, and their
easily detachable when you need true color.

From my perspective, the gradients used in defender amplify the subjective
whiteness in that window, so I can see what your saying even though there's
objectively no difference from just the standard pure white. I believe
there's more of this to come for us within Vista.

 

[Bill Sanderson MVP]

From my perspective, the gradients used in defender amplify the subjective
whiteness in that window, so I can see what your saying even though
there's objectively no difference from just the standard pure white. I
believe there's more of this to come for us within Vista.

I've wondered whether Vista specs have anything to do with this. I'd think
honoring the users choice of background color would still be part of the
spec, though--I think it is important for some accessability issues.

 

[Guest]

If you don't like the pure white (255,255,255) that your monitor displays,
most monitors have a control to change the basic color levels. On my monitor,
I can use the control buttons near the bottom of the screen to adjust
brightness, contrast, position, and a number of other aspects of the screen
appearance. One of the choices is "Color Select" and it lists 5500°, 6500°,
and 9300°; The higher the number the brighter the whites look.

Color Temperature is measured using a theoretical black body heated to
various temperatures; a cannon ball is a close approximation. At about 900°,
the black body starts to glow red, at 3000° the ball glows about the same
color as an incandescent light bulb. At about 4500°, the color of fluorescent
lights is achieved. 5500° is close to direct sunlight. 9300° approaches the
color of the brightest blue sky and whites start looking blue. Color
Temperature is measured using the Kelvin Scale.

 

[Guest]

Otherwise known as "Absolute Zero" i.e. - 243K

If you don't like the pure white (255,255,255) that your monitor displays,
most monitors have a control to change the basic color levels. On my monitor,
I can use the control buttons near the bottom of the screen to adjust
brightness, contrast, position, and a number of other aspects of the screen
appearance. One of the choices is "Color Select" and it lists 5500°, 6500°,
and 9300°; The higher the number the brighter the whites look.

Color Temperature is measured using a theoretical black body heated to
various temperatures; a cannon ball is a close approximation. At about 900°,
the black body starts to glow red, at 3000° the ball glows about the same
color as an incandescent light bulb. At about 4500°, the color of fluorescent
lights is achieved. 5500° is close to direct sunlight. 9300° approaches the
color of the brightest blue sky and whites start looking blue. Color
Temperature is measured using the Kelvin Scale.

 

[Larry Gardner]

I agree ... the problem is though, most people who have been creating
web-sites, in a lot of cases, assume the background is rgb(255,255,255) and
have created GIFs with that as the background of their GIF.

Even is some Windows apps, this holds true.