Why is the background color of the Photoshop application designed gray?

[hosseinp93797315]

Hello
For a long time, my mind is busy with a question. And I'm sure you can answer it.
Why is the background color of the Photoshop application designed gray?
What is the scientific reason?
Thank you and best wishes for you

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

Because the area around an image affects the way you see that image.  I am sure you realise that you can right click that area and chose a custom colour.  Can you imagine walking into an upmarket gallery, and seeing a painting with a large yellow or green matte board around it?  Look how different the last two examples below appear.    Mid grey is neutral and has minimal affect on how we perceive an image.  Does that answer your question?

[hosseinp93797315]

Thank you Trevor.Dennis

You have sent an appropriate response

But

Except for what you mentioned

Can there be any other causes?

[John Waller]

Other than Trevor's excellent response about colour perception, the other reason that springs to mind for me is that I can spend hours editing images with the neutral, mid-grey background of Photoshop.

I could not spend very long editing with the background examples posted by Trevor above.

[hosseinp93797315]

Thank you John Waller

Your answer is absolutely correct

I mean,

How many reasons can we say?

I am interested in knowing more answers

And at least 5 excellent reasons

Like those you said

Is there a text from Adobe in this case?

[jane-e]

hosseinp93797315  wrote

I am interested in knowing more answers

And at least 5 excellent reasons

Like those you said

In this case, one excellent answer is all you need, and Trevor gave an excellent visual example.

[jane-e]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/John+Waller  wrote

I could not spend very long editing with the background examples posted by Trevor above.

I can‘t even scroll through Trevor’s background examples without physically wincing. Grey works for me.

[Chuck Uebele]

Trevor is pretty much spot on. The designers for photoshop realize that to properly gauge color of an image you need a neutral background and surroundings. This is a standard with color correction, long before Photoshop existed.

[Semaphoric]

Back in my film lab days, I went for an interview once at a place that had a "Viewing Room" that was completely grey—walls, floor, ceiling, cabinets, counter-tops. It was actually sort of disorienting to be in

[lambiloon]

Yes as mentioned by others to focus only on main subject surroundings are kept neutral so all the attention remain for subject....Thanks.

[G_Hoffmann]

Having heard so many very good arguments for neutral backgrounds, a plea against white walls might be interesting.

Sorry, it's only a Google translation.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

A plea against white walls

http://herzogantonulrich.de/museum-backstage-mut-zur-farbe

19. Februar 2018

Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum

Braunschweig, Germany

Courage to color

One thing is certain: when we reopen our museum in autumn 2016, we will make the world more colorful. Purple,

sky blue, lemon yellow or lime green - the walls of our new showrooms shine in all the colors of the rainbow.

The Gemäldegalerie brings it to six different colors, while the exhibition floor on the second floor presents itself

in twelve different color garments. White walls can not even be found in staircases or service areas, because

here, too, the architecture retains a delicate outline in cream and stone tones, reappearing as it was originally

conceived in the 19th century.

Why such a rush of color? Can art handle that?

Oh yes. She can not only tolerate it, she wants it that way! White exhibition spaces, the concept of the "White

Cube", which became fashionable around 1920, is a staging of classical modern and contemporary art. One of

the ulterior motives of this concept was to prevent any interaction between the exhibition architecture and the

artwork. The artwork should talk to the visitor, without background noise. You can make modern art talk, but old

masters can only whisper. A painting painted in the 16th or 17th century does not have much to tell you in front

of a white wall. Our eye can hardly distinguish the subtle nuances of the motif created in several layers of paint

applied against the dazzling white of the background. This is called a "crossfade effect".

The eye adjusts to the brightness of the background color, the actual leading actor on the wall, the painting with

its fine, but muchdarker color facets, blurs into a shadowy spot on the wall. The fact that white is not an ideal

background color, by the way, is not only true for dark-toned paintings or dark bronze sculptures. Even bright

materials such as marble or alabaster do not flourish against a white background, the natural materials even

look dirty at worst.

Old art is therefore more effective in front of colored backgrounds than in front of brilliant white. But here too

there are differences. The new picture gallery is dominated by bright shades of blue, red and green, while the

sculpted and applied art on the second floor features bold colors such as purple, lemon yellow (see picture

above) and grass green, as well as soft like honey yellow or blue gray.

The reason: the colors are a means to an end, and the purpose is to provide our art with the right ambience.

The picture gallery consists of meter-high rooms with a lot of wall surface, so that the colors look very intense,

and the paintings hang directly on the wall.

Therefore, we have chosen bright colors that gently lift the art while supporting the open space feeling of the

spacious architecture.

The galleries on the second floor have a smaller ceiling than the picture gallery and are divided into smaller units,

the sculptures,porcelain, furniture, lacquer, coins, majolica and other treasures are not presented directly on the

wall, but in showcases or on pedestals. The spatial situation offered us the chance to choose colors such as

lemon yellow or grass green, which would be toointense for the atmosphere on meter-high wall surfaces like in

the picture gallery. On the second floor, each of the twelve theme areas has its own color. Once again, we had

both the art and the visitor in mind during the design.

The frequent color changes are refreshing and encourage you to experience each room as a new chapter.

At the same time, we were able to create a background for our works of art that emphasizes the thematic context

and thus optimally emphasizes it. For example, the rooms on the theme of "branding" (The Prince as a brand)

are held in stately purple tones, the theme room on faith and religion in a light sky blue, and so on.

The colors have long been set, the rooms are now the finishing touch to the return of art. Did we choose correctly?

As of October, we as readers of this blog will see it as we bring the first works into their new environment.

[D Fosse]

Gernot, I actually work at an art museum, so that's interesting. We are acutely aware of the effects of the traditional "white cube" vs colored walls, and it's a big discussion every time. We usually repaint with every exhibition (I say "we", but our graphic designer and the curators decide this).

But these two are different. In an exhibition we want to put the audience in a certain state of mind. I can't do that in front of the computer. I need to be neutral - but most of all, I need "what you see is what you get". It won't be printed with a colored frame, it will be printed on white (or yellowish) paper.

If the OP needs one single "scientific" reason, it can be summed up with that: What I see is what you (hopefully) get.

[davescm]

I agree with all the above - 50% gray for the background so that your eye/brain is not biased. For similar reasons I also set the Photoshop UI to Light gray. With a dark interface, which for some reason became popular a few years ago, the tendency is to adjust the images too dark.

Dave

[D Fosse]

Yes, and that is still a huge problem with Lightroom, which for some reason doesn't have a light UI option. You can set a white image backdrop within the UI, but that turns the whole UI into a dizzying frenzy of high contrast which only makes it worse.

Even yours truly, who is very much aware of these things, frequently open images from Lightroom only to discover they're muddy and too dark.

I have a theory. The dark UI became popular because it makes everything look good. It has immediate appeal. What it does is remove the visual reference for tonal relationships, so all the defects are hidden or at least toned down.

[Trevor.Dennis]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/D+Fosse  wrote

I have a theory. The dark UI became popular because it makes everything look good. It has immediate appeal. What it does is remove the visual reference for tonal relationships, so all the defects are hidden or at least toned down.

There's truth in that.  There used to be a similar trick with cell  phone cameras where the phone's JPG processing would crush the blacks creating contrast, and at first glance, a nice looking picture.  A buddy of mine complained that the RAW files from  his Nikon DSLR were not  as good as the pictures his wife took with her cell phone.  I told him to switch to JPG and choose a Dynamic preset, and he had  nice  looking pictures.

Pushing up that black point is a pretty good  noise reduction tool as well.

[D Fosse]

The curious thing is that today we see crushed blacks as a defect to be avoided. But you and I are old enough to remember Kodachrome and Velvia, where it was accepted practice to underexpose a third to half stop - precisely to "crush" the blacks into solid, impenetrable darkness _and_ make the colors pop. We all did it because that's what the National Geographics' photographers did. All to make it look good.

But still, there is a fundamental difference between editing environment and final presentation.

[davescm]

Totally agree on the Lightroom UI.

The nearest you can do is set the "Lights out" option to Light Gray in Preferences > Interface then Press L whilst editing for a sanity check. I would much prefer the option set a lighter UI though.

Dave

[Per Berntsen]

I always use a white background, because my work will either be printed on white paper or displayed on a web page with a white background, and I also need to see how the edges of the image interact with the background. (like how bright should a highlight be to separate from the background, but not look to dark)

Using a white background can be tough on the eyes, so I sometimes temporarily change it to gray, or even black, especially if most of the image is off screen.

https://forums.adobe.com/people/D%20Fosse wrote

Yes, and that is still a huge problem with Lightroom, which for some reason doesn't have a light UI option. You can set a white image backdrop within the UI, but that turns the whole UI into a dizzying frenzy of high contrast which only makes it worse.

I agree that the Ligtroom interface is too dark, but I do use a white background in LR as well, have been doing so since version 2.

It may look a little strange at first, but it works perfectly for me, and I never think about it.

A big problem for me with LR in the past was that there was no way to turn off the drop shadow in Develop, which made it impossible to see the image edges properly, so i was constantly using Lights out with a white background.

Luckily, this changed in version 6 and later versions – the drop shadow disappears when the GPU is activated.

[jane-e]

davescm  wrote

I agree with all the above - 50% gray for the background so that your eye/brain is not biased.

The first thing I do with a new computer (or any I will be using) is to change the screen background to a 50% gray as well.

I’m glad to hear that some others are not fond of the dark interface in Photoshop and for the reasons why.

[angie_taylor]

As Trevor brilliantly illustrated, 50% Grey is neutral. I also have my desktop set to 50% grey for the same reason. It is the least distracting and won't affect your color perception. Here's more about color perception. One of the many things that designers are taught on graphic design degrees. If you feel like you need more help in learning the principles of design there's a book here that can help you 🙂

Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist: A Practical Guide to Principles & Techniques: Amazon....

Best background image for the best color perception | Datacolor

[Norman Sanders]

I am a little late to the party but, as a retired printer, here is my contribution:

Prior to the introduction of Photoshop, letterpress printers and lithographers spent a considerable amount of time comparing reflection art* to its printed reproduction. In order to avoid the surround exerting an influence on perception, an industry-specific standard was established and special viewing booths constructed. The standard is Munsell N8, a value of gray slightly lighter than N7, which is used as the standard surround for comparing paint chips and fabric colors. The value of a gray surround compared to black or white has been mentioned here so there is little need to repeat it. I would add that it would probably help if you Googled “simultaneous contrast.” Although the following is a commercial site, the information there may be useful: https://www.rpimaging.com/munsell-neutral-gray-paint.html. It also displays N7 and N8. 

*We worked with C prints, R prints, Cibachromes, Dye Transfers, Flexichromes and fine art.

FWIW: When viewing 35mm transparencies a special viewer was used. It was a self-contained, fixed projection distance slide projector that displayed the image on an N8 surround.

When the art was 6cm x 6cm, 4x5 or 8x10 Ektachomes, a viewing box meeting Kelvin, Color Rendering Index and level of illumination standards was used. Kodak advised that at least 3” of light box illumination should surround the chrome to create an optical flare and reduce visual color saturation and range somewhat and bring the viewed image closer to the limitations of ink on paper.

[ScooterD76]

I know this well as a painter and digital artist- Just recently I was working on cloning out white label, so full-screen white, I started to see yellow blobs that werent really there...

A long time ago I was painting live on a highly reflective, bright orange surface ( road sign ) completely screwed my color perception for the night!

[Norman Sanders]

Ah, @ScooterD76, I believe that is something a bit different: Retinal Fatigue. You may want to Google it, or try an experiment with this image.

[Semaphoric]

Is there any way to set the background color of the Application Frame? I like the dark gray interface for the way it makes the panels look. I find the panels wich are always open on my second monitor are distracting and hard to read with the light gray interface.

But I do not like the very dark Application frame in the dark gray interface. Can you change its color separately?