Have you ever noticed that Web page colors generally look brighter on Macs than on PCs? Contrary to what Mac fanboys will tell you, that’s not a result of Steve Jobs’ infinite wisdom. Macs use a gamma of 1.8 to match most printing presses. Windows uses a gamma of 2.2 to match the HDTV capture standard.
The gaudy brightness of Web colors on Macs is merely a vestige of print publishing. That’s why Web design newbies on Macs tend to come up with dark layouts that are hard to read on PCs.
People who still publish on dead trees would appreciate Mac displays matching print. The difference between how Macs and PCs show Web colors, however, has been a pain in the ass to Web designers for years. That pain is about to go away, as Mac OS X Snow Leopard switches to a gamma of 2.2.
For years, Mac fanboys have been trying to convince me that their brighter Web page displays are better. For years, I’ve been tolerating unreadably dark Web pages from newbie designers on Macs. Turns out they were all just hanging on to outdated specs.
Originally posted on September 7, 2009 @ 8:44 am
On the other hand, if this difference in gamma settings causes a web page to become unreadable, it must have been pretty damn near unreadable to begin with.
Great post, we were sitting around the office the other day talking about this.