LCD and Colors - Need some advice

Trying to find Maroon or Burgundy

[confusedxx]

Hello all,

I use an LCD monitor at home and the room is well light (even with the blinds shut, I have a lot of light). I tried calibrating my monitor by covering all windows and reading this online guide somewhere but found my LCD is cheap and cannot make a good solid black.

Anyway I was trying to build a personal website using the Maroon of a Buddhist Monk's robes. That nice deep maroon or burgundy looks good in photos and suits the theme of my travels thru Asia. Anyway, what I got either looks too bright in the red or too brown and also looks different on my work LCD and my friends PCs.

Can anyone suggest a few codes to use in PhotoShop to get a nice shade of Maroon or Red wine? Guess the problem in the photos of these robes is the color is different between the shadows of the robes and where sunlight is directly on the fabric.

Thanks for the help and suggested colors

[Don_Hoagie]

LCDs are inherently inferior in their ability to show blacks, so don't rag on your poor monitor just yet.

As far as color-matching a real 3d surface, as you said, you really can't do it, because the value of a surface like a robe changes according to light and shadow. I would get some quality digital photos of the robes in good lighting situations, put them on the site, and then find a red that looks good with the photos as a background color; if you really feel your monitor is inferior, then go to a friend's CRT or high-end LCD to check out the one or two reds that work...

I doubt anyone here will provide you with hex codes for "better" maroons... there's no such thing. When will people learn to love all colors?! Oh, the humanity!

Making the color transition from a real material to a web color is rough, and usually the intuitive thinking would be to scan in the real color or get the PMS value if possible... but this usually does not help. Remember that you don't have to match the robe's exact color, you just have to give people the vibe that your site's color is the same as the robe. A lot of times, that means using a different value or saturation altogether.

Also remember that all your hard work on color will go to waste on many users, who will also have crappy monitors or bad lighting, etc. So don't beat yourself up over it.

[travelin cat]

the hex dec equivalant that I use is 80000, it comes out very consisitently cross platform as a nice looking Maroon...

the rgb equivalent is:
r-128
g-0
b-0

cmyk equivalent is:
c-29%
m-100%
y-100%
k-38%

and HSB is:
h-0
s-100%
b-50%