Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Different browsers see different colors

mux.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#31

Post by vlovich123 »

zokier wrote: post #14

> And many people know that specific colors are really just wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. [...] > There are many systems involved to turn an RGB triplet value into a specific wavelength of light I think this wavelenght-color connection, often perpetuated in high-school classrooms, confuses people more than helps. In particular when talking RGB colors, your display (or really, any part of the process) w…

That’s when you’re talking about color production (how the artist/content creator intends a specific visual image to be perceived).

Color reproduction is 100% an engineering thing about wavelengths. To my knowledge monitors do indeed change the wavelength. Sure it’s several separate colored emitters, but using constructive and destructive interference to generate a wavelength doesn’t take anything away from it.

There are places where things get messy where reproduction blends in a bit of production (eg applying an HDR filter, applying monitor-specific tweaks, etc). It’s a complex topic for sure. But the position of “color is purely a perception in our head and not wavelengths” position is too extreme in the opposite direction and isn’t helpful in building things.

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#32

Post by willis936 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #31
zokier wrote: post #14

> And many people know that specific colors are really just wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. [...] > There are many systems involved to turn an RGB triplet value into a specific wavelength of light I think this wavelenght-color connection, often perpetuated in high-school classrooms, confuses people more than helps. In particular when talking RGB colors, your display (or really, any part of the process) w…

That’s when you’re talking about color production (how the artist/content creator intends a specific visual image to be perceived). Color reproduction is 100% an engineering thing about wavelengths. To my knowledge monitors do indeed change the wavelength. Sure it’s several separate colored emitters, but using constructive and destructive interference to generate a wavelength doesn’t take anything away from it. There…

No. Displays make (relatively) sharp peak emissions at one wavelength. We blend their relative intensities to trick our mind into thinking it's seeing the wavelength in between those three spectral peaks. All the colors we can see are from the spectral response of our three cones (hence why we use three spectral emission lines). We simply cannot tell the difference between magenta and red+blue. The actual photons are not interacting with each other. Take a prism to your display and you'll see the discrete emissions. This wouldn't happen with an actual magenta emission (which also doesn't exist, further highlighting the limits of color in the human vision system).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#33

Post by JJMcJ »

zokier wrote: post #14

> And many people know that specific colors are really just wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. [...] > There are many systems involved to turn an RGB triplet value into a specific wavelength of light I think this wavelenght-color connection, often perpetuated in high-school classrooms, confuses people more than helps. In particular when talking RGB colors, your display (or really, any part of the process) w…

https://hirund.in/blog/magenta-doesnt-exist

Paradoxical title - for the notion that magenta is something we perceive, not a wavelength.

An example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_color#Extra-spectral_...

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#35

Post by thefounder »

KONAir wrote: post #29
mmcclure wrote: post #3

(Mux founder here, but adding some additional community bits to the conversation) Probably unsurprisingly, the (honestly absurd world of) color is a pretty consistent topic among video engineers. Color theory is one of those areas that people working directly with it see it as a completely unsolved problem, and everyone else largely takes it for granted. This is a small sample size, but these are all talks just from…

(I hate having to make these statements but I am not trolling) I was told search for "perfect" parity across users was in vain because perception of colour varied too much, from blood sugar level to physiology and etc. What is the true benefit of going after this on software side? I mean I am not understanding the difference it causes on artistic statement or emotional impact. I understand and support "true colour" a…

I doubt the blood sugar level is more important to color than different display types/models and/or different rendering software.

I think the issue is more about consistency than true color/fidelity as true fidelity/color sharing between individuals is impossible at this time. Professional video equipment exists for a reason.

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#36

Post by billytetrud »

mmcclure wrote: post #25
billytetrud wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its labeled with a different color value tho (0, 77, 0). Is it just saying that's the value it is rendering as, but implying that it was encoded as the same green color?

Ah got it, those are the value it's rendering as, all of them were encoded with the exact same green.

Ah gotcha. I expected that's what it had to have meant, but it wasn't clear just from looking at the image.

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#37

Post by rwxsh »

mmcclure wrote: post #3

(Mux founder here, but adding some additional community bits to the conversation) Probably unsurprisingly, the (honestly absurd world of) color is a pretty consistent topic among video engineers. Color theory is one of those areas that people working directly with it see it as a completely unsolved problem, and everyone else largely takes it for granted. This is a small sample size, but these are all talks just from…

> Project leaders from Ffmpeg, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft (and probably Nvidia and AMD) need to all get together and decide on a single method.

Speaking non-officially as a browser implementer, VUI isn't always reliable as a source of color, both because the encoders don't always know, and the decoders don't always extract it reliably. The container is a more reliable place to put it (eg. MP4 'colr' box).

Browsers do differ in behavior when these sources of metadata differ. It currently looks likely that WebCodecs will require implementations to use app-provided color metadata over in-band metadata, which would be good for interoperability!

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#39

Post by larkost »

pmoriarty wrote: post #13

I wonder if there'll ever come a time when display calibration at the hardware level ever becomes common in consumer products.

It is not perfect, but Apple at least does this on every piece of hardware as it finishes assembly. Of course things slowly get out-of-spec from there, but at least they try.

Re: Different browsers see different colors

#40

Post by speedgoose »

com2kid wrote: post #6
rorykoehler wrote: post #2

Screens also display colours differently. Trying to get the perfect colour is futile in the same way trying to get pixel perfect web designs is.

On my Samsung Note 8, photos are rendered with very different colors in email previews vs if you download then view them, the email preview shows the colors as being very blown out. Color spaces are hard yo.

Some smartphones have a feature to "enhance" the colours automatically. You should check if you have such a feature enabled.
Post reply on HN