The blackest black is not quite black

[robcat2075]

In A:M we typically set a color of RGB 0,0,0 for black but there is nothing in our world that really is that black. That occurred to me when I saw this article

 

This May Be The World's Darkest Material Yet

 

 

 

They have devised a new material that absorbs 99.96% of the light that falls on it which is indeed very black but still not truly black.

[Fuchur]

I close to never use absolute colors like 255/0/0 or 0/0/0... it does often look unnatural...

[robcat2075]

Here is another article on the new black material...

 

Black is the new black

[ypoissant]

My reference for minimum and maximum material reflectance has always been the Gretag Macbeth color checker.

http://www.poynton.com/notes/color/GretagMacbeth-ColorChecker.html

Looking at the CIE_Y (third column) in the reflectance data shows that the black patch still reflects 4% of the light it receive and the white patch reflects only 90% of the light it receives. But that is valid only in linear color space.

[DZ4]

I can't paste a link, but the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" video had a black background which I found interesting. Did the budget run out before they could put the special effects in, or was that just the effect they were trying to pull off. Maybe they had VantaBlack way back then. Either way, it would be cool to use that in the same manner a green or blue screen is used, most commonly for weather maps. But a PNG sequence could record images with a flat black background, then use color transparency to place the images/video on another background. Obviously, an old movie trick, also SNL, typically seen with a driving scene or skit.