My point is that it's now a common misconception that #000 is an "unnatural" black -- that's literally the word the article uses. That it's blacker than anything natural, i.e. blacker than objects in real life, that it becomes an "unnatural" level of contrast.
It's a bizarre idea that started gaining traction maybe around 5 years ago, that using #000 in designs is therefore bad because it doesn't occur in nature.
That's what I'm pushing back against. The #000 on your screen does occur in nature, because its output on your screen is just a normal household black like lots of other objects.
I was about to write my own diatribe, but found yours first.
Yeah, something like 10 years ago there was a web designer who took an Art 101 class, where the teacher told them to never use pure black paint. Because black objects in the real world appear to the viewer as a dark gray.
This is all true! On a canvas, painting a black car—which uses actual black paint in real life—using pure black paint, will not look right. The painting is supposed to "have its own light" included. So you must represent what the object would look like under the lighting conditions of the world you're recreating. Highlights are not different colors in real life, but they are on a painting.
But anyway, so this web designer, fresh from his Art 101 course, decided to write some blog post about it, and it's been accepted wisdom ever since.
1) We're not painting cars here, we're writing text. I don't load up "dark gray" ink in my fountain pen, nor do I use a "dark gray" toner in my printer. I would much rather the text on my screen be the same.
2) Contrast is good for legibility. Make the contrast as sharp as possible. Or, if you don't want that harsh look, then darken the background instead of lightening the text. Not too much, just enough to please your aesthetic sense while maintaining readability.
Displays do have technical issues. CRT's bloom on high contrast elements. I just read OLED ghosting is a thing when pixels are full black, not driven, as examples.
It's a bizarre idea that started gaining traction maybe around 5 years ago, that using #000 in designs is therefore bad because it doesn't occur in nature.
That's what I'm pushing back against. The #000 on your screen does occur in nature, because its output on your screen is just a normal household black like lots of other objects.