When is Black really Black

[Anonymous]

I have a question about Photoshop settings to create a true black as a background color so that as it is brought into Archicad as .jpg the black is actually the same black as what Archicad produces. This example is a Luminance Surface so this problem may be caused by that but we have also seen the same issue using the Art method that the black os not the same as what Archicad produces using C4D render inside of Archicad.

Any suggestions are appreciated...

[Karl Ottenstein]

I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what you're asking. True black in PS is of course (0,0,0). In a rendering program, to create a surface that measures (0,0,0) would require that that surface have absolutely zero interaction with any light sources. Find me a black in the real world that you can view as a true, absolute black. Only inside a mine shaft deep in the earth with no illumination.

As an artistic suggestion as well... I like to keep Dwight Atkinson's advice in mind, where he has said that he views black as 'sucking all life' when it appears in a render.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Karl, in my opinion you should avoid using either absolute black (0.0.0) or absolute white (255.255.255)
Have you tried opening the settings of the desired archicad-color shader and than creating a jpg in Photoshop with exactly the same RGB? But I think that it will still be different because of the archicad's shader settings,like reflectance etc.
And as Karl said, its very difficult to find absolute blacks in nature.
Cheers

[Eduardo Rolon]

If you are using a JPEG in the luminance channel make sure that the area that is black is 0,0,0 then it should not render lighter.

See the example on this thread
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=46824&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=10

The JPEG for the Luminance channel is black and white

[Fran_ois Chatelain]

Karl wrote:
Find me a black in the real world that you can view as a true, absolute black.

Well, for informative purposes, have a look at this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack to find out what researchers have recently managed to create.
Scary stuff if you ask me...

Cheers
Francois

[Karl Ottenstein]

François wrote:

Karl wrote:
Find me a black in the real world that you can view as a true, absolute black.

Well, for informative purposes, have a look at this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack to find out what researchers have recently managed to create.
Scary stuff if you ask me...

Well, yeah... forgot about reading about that a while ago... 🙂

[Anonymous]

Thanks for these suggestions, we will give these a try. Unfortunately black is a must for as part of a corporate branding, we can also take the renders into Photoshop and make corrections there