Color Difference

[k9calamity]

Hey, I am designing a website for a guitar maker. It is up in a test location, and the menu navigation system is weird! The site has a black background. The nav menu is FireWorks PNG based and has a black bacjground as well. However, the nav bar black is lighter than the background's black! You can only see this on good monitors, yet why does this happen???? Thanks!

http://www.citron-guitars.com/NewSiteTest

[Rincewind]

One of the backgrounds it's really black. It's just a very very dark grey. You could take a screen shot, put it into photoshop and then use the colour picker to check which shade is which. There will be a very small difference. You can then set the site background to the same shade as the menu. The background doesn't have to be truely black. Only look black and also look the same on both elements.

Infact, I often find that pure blacks, whites and greys don't look good. If you put in just a tint of colour you can make the mood nicer without anyone noticing the differance.

You can only see this on good monitors,

Good monitors yes, but incorrectly setup. There will be a colour ballance wizard in your graphics properties window that will take you through adjusting the brightness, contrast and colour ballance to the ideal level so that graphics display as the designer intended.

Many people, who only use their pc for typing, turn the brightness and contrast up full. This is not actually the best setting. Cause when you view pictures on the web or from your digital camera, the brightness is all messed up and you don't see true blacks as black. Instead you see only greys. Or light colours burn out to pure white and you can't see the subtilty in the lighter tones. If properly setup. Black will be really black. White will be bright white and all the other tones will be nicely separated so you can see the full range clearly.