That time a pro told me to stop using pure black in my digital art

I was at a small gallery showing in Portland last month when a guy who does color grading for films looked at my screen and said 'your blacks are eating the detail'. I figured he was just being picky, since I liked the bold contrast. Tried his advice on my next piece, swapping #000000 for a dark blue-gray. The shadows actually had depth for the first time and the whole composition popped. Has anyone else had a color rule they ignored for years until someone proved it works?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley5958d ago

Yeah okay but now I have to remember which deep shade of purple matches my mood and honestly that's too much pressure for a Tuesday night. Guess I'll just stick with gray blobs and call it "atmospheric.

margaret_lane8d ago

Oh man, the pure black thing was a total game changer for me too. I used to think dark colors were just dark colors, you know? Then a friend who does landscape photography pointed out that real shadows are never totally black, there's always some color bouncing around in there. I started using a really deep purple for my night scenes (it sounds weird, but trust me) and suddenly my backgrounds had that atmospheric depth I couldn't get before. The hardest part was breaking the habit of reaching for black first, but now I mix up a custom dark every time based on the mood I want. It's like putting glasses on for the first time once you see the difference.