How do projectors and screens show the color black if black is the absence of light?
In: Technology
I’d take the word of everyone else for projector screens but OLED screens achieve true black by emitting no light. Non OLED screens have a backlight that is behind the entire screen so when there is no signal for color it is still grayish because you’re seeing the backlight. OLED screen work by having a mini back light for every pixel. When black is needed, the backlight for that pixel turns off achieving true black.
Here’s a link so a video that explains it in more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMhX3Drq14
This is why movie theaters are dark. The blackest the screen can be is how it looks in the ambient light. The image being protected into it is so much brighter it gives the illusion of black, but this is harder if the room is not dark.
My attempt at ELI5:
It’s not black you’re looking at. It’s a very dark shade of grey. The darker the grey, the darker it looks.
Something that is true black is a blackbody, but it’s considered hypothetical at this point.
They just are off in that part, in protectors they just don’t “shoot” light at that part of the screen, lcd block the light going through those pixels, oled and microleds simply are turned off that’s why on projectors the quality of the image depends so much on the screen and a bien light and why lcd’s blacks tend to look washed off
What colour is the whiteboard you’re projecting on? White. What colour is the black parts of the picture you’re projecting onto it? Exact same colour. Only the white parts of the picture are brighter.
That’s why you have to turn the lights off and close the curtains for a good picture.
You would be amazed how dark something can look when directly next to something bright. The back of the screen is technically as dark as black can get, but it’s amplified by surrounding light.
This is why poorly lit shots look terrible on screens, the TV has to fight to differentiate the darks by adding small amounts of light.
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