Go [Color a]– never use pure black

Original address: http://www.cgjoy.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=110762&extra=page%3D1%26filter%3Dtypeid% 26typeid%3d127%26typeid%3d127

The most important color-matching technique I've learned in my life is to avoid using pure black in my work. As a child, my art teacher, Zamula, gave me this inspiration.
Later at Rhodes Design School, they didn't let me use pure black. What the? Don't use pure black? It may be absurd to hear this technique, but in fact, it is a very pertinent proposition.
The main problem is that we usually think of darker colors as black. In fact, it's hard to find true pure black. The road is not pure black, office chair is not pure black, the font on the webpage, actually is not pure black.
Shadows aren't necessarily black.
In high school, I and some of the art-loving little friends often stay together to discuss and create. Ms. Zamula is our teacher, and she often shows me the works of many artists. She has a special affection for Wayne Thiebaud's work. She always let us pay attention to the painter's shadow portrayal, she told us, the painter's shadow, in fact, all are bright blue!
Wayne Thiebaud's portfolio I've seen about 10 times. He is a good painter, eclectic, the shadow is usually not black)

His work looks great, the saturation of the shadows is high, and if you can take a look at the collection, you'll feel great!
You might think, "Well, it's just a painting, not a real one," but Thiebaud's work has sparked my thinking about color theory.

I remember later zamula in class for us to come up with a blue light bulb, installed, and aimed at the white Base frame white ball, the shadow is actually orange, rather than black.
I was shocked. Now I'm strolling in San Francisco, looking for some of the most saturated shades. This is the photo I took with path (using a filter) and I got the following result.

The deepest color in the image is not #000000. Instead of #130f30 (brightness 19%, saturation 69%)
Black will be overwhelming
When you have carefully selected the color, ready to start the design, you added a pure black. It is unfortunate to tell you that the black color intensity can overwhelm other colors. The black will be very prominent, because the nature does not have true pure black, will appear unnatural. In daily life, the black is not pure, but dark gray. Also, the light may be toned, so they are dark grey.
Many of the applications we use everyday are black, but in fact, they are dark gray. Let's say Twitter's sidebar, Sublime Text 2 Sidebar, Twitter bootstrap,ps background. Their colors are close to the black color. But the color is slightly blended to prevent the black from covering other elements on the screen.

Saturation is the key

Know not to use pure black, then how to use it? Do you want to get further? Come on, I'll talk about my little cheats. When using gray, it is advisable to mix a little bit of other colors so that the color looks dull. For example, I previously took the path of the photo, saturation is actually 69%, want to reach the degree of light gray, saturation only need 3%.

I used this method when I was matching the segment.io. Added a little orange color to the gray. In the light gray section, the minimum saturation is 2%. Until the dark gray of the 22%. An arc is formed in the color selector of PS.
Take a look at the old version of the Facebbok interface, why does the Facebook mobile interface look so great? Because of their gray, a little bit of Facebook's iconic blue.

Conclusion
At first, Ms. Zamula told me this, and then they taught me that later at the Rhode Island School of Design. But what really made me pay attention to this was the inspiration in life and the experience of the actual design of the doubts. What do you think? Is it difficult to design the interface? Say simple, very simple, say difficult, really difficult. Because of the design, you must be careful, a dime, a percentage can not be poor. Until now, I still can not quickly choose the right gray, I always have to ponder half a day.
Remember the principle! Never use pure black, so it's unnatural.

Go [Color a]– never use pure black