Re: [css-color] shifting a color to make adequate contrast with another color

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:01 PM, Andrew VanWagoner
<thetalecrafter@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've made an attempt to contrast against another color in a branch of
> css-color-function:
>
[snip]
>
> Here's what I think is the key: Knowing the direction of maximum
> color, we can calculate the minimum contrast color's luminosity, and
> as we move toward the maximum color, the luminosity of base color
> changes monotonically. We also know which luminosity will be larger
> when contrast ratio is calculated.
>
> That does mean that in the contrast curve between the base color and
> the background color, the colors where contrast decreases are
> unreachable.
>
> For the #808080 problem, perhaps a better way to determine the
> direction of the maximum is which provides a better contrast ratio,
> instead of lum < .5. Then the maximum color will be black instead of
> white. I haven't tried that yet though.
>
> I still feel like I might be missing something though. Let me know if
> you see anything that doesn't look right.

I'm not spending a bunch of time decoding your algo, but I think what
you're doing is tracing backwards from the max-contrast color until
you hit the min-contrast color for the first time (which'll either be
the base color, or an interpolated color somewhere between base and
max, if the background color has a luminosity between the base and the
max), then doing interpolation normally?

This is fine, but as I said, *it might not be what you want*.  It
means that you're guaranteed to have a sensible way to interpret
0%-100%, but it also means that the 0% color might be *far away* from
the base color, leaving you with only a small range of colors near
white/black that can be used.  Maybe that's okay?  It's unfortunate,
though, that if the base color is an acceptable contrast level, it
won't get chosen in this circumstance.

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 17 March 2015 00:12:31 UTC