Change text color based on brightness of the cover

Question

I've thought about the following for a while already, so now I want to know your opinions, possible solutions, and so on.

I am looking for a plugin or technique that changes a text's color or switches between predefined images/icons depending on the average brightness of the covered pixels of it's parent's background-image or -color.

If the covered area of it's background is rather dark, make the text white or switch the icons.

Additionally, it'd be great if the script would notice if the parent has no defined background-color or -image and then continue to search for the most nearest (from parent element to it's parent element..).

What do you think, know about this idea? Is there something similar out there already? script-examples?

Cheers, J.

Answer 1

This article on 24 ways about Calculating Color Contrast might be of interest to you. Ignore the first set of functions because they're wrong, but the YIQ formula will help you determine whether or not to use a light or dark foreground color.

Once you obtain the element's (or ancestor's) background color, you can use this function from the article to determine a suitable foreground color:

function getContrastYIQ(hexcolor){
    var r = parseInt(hexcolor.substr(0,2),16);
    var g = parseInt(hexcolor.substr(2,2),16);
    var b = parseInt(hexcolor.substr(4,2),16);
    var yiq = ((r*299)+(g*587)+(b*114))/1000;
    return (yiq >= 128) ? 'black' : 'white';
}

Answer 2

If you are using ES6, convert hex to RBG then can use this:

const hexToRgb = hex => {
    // turn hex val to RGB
    const result = /^#?([a-f\d]{2})([a-f\d]{2})([a-f\d]{2})$/i.exec(hex)
    return result
        ? {
              r: parseInt(result[1], 16),
              g: parseInt(result[2], 16),
              b: parseInt(result[3], 16)
          }
        : null
}

// calc to work out if it will match on black or white better
const setContrast = rgb =>
    (rgb.r * 299 + rgb.g * 587 + rgb.b * 114) / 1000 > 125 ? 'black' : 'white'

const getCorrectColor = setContrast(hexToRgb(#ffffff))

Answer 3

mix-blend-mode does the trick:

header {
  overflow: hidden;
  height: 100vh;
  background: url(https://www.w3schools.com/html/pic_mountain.jpg) 50%/cover;
}

h2 {
  color: white;
  font: 900 35vmin/50vh arial;
  text-align: center;
  mix-blend-mode: difference;
  filter: drop-shadow(0.05em 0.05em orange);
}

<header>
  <h2 contentEditable role='textbox' aria-multiline='true' >Edit me here</h2>
</header>

Addition (March 2018): Following, a nice tutorial explaining all different types of modes/implementations: https://css-tricks.com/css-techniques-and-effects-for-knockout-text/

Answer 4

Interesting resources for this:

• W3C - Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast
• Calculating the Perceived Brightness of a Color

Here's the W3C algorithm (with JSFiddle demo too):

var rgb = [255, 0, 0];

// randomly change to showcase updates
setInterval(setContrast, 1000);

function setContrast() {
  // randomly update
  rgb[0] = Math.round(Math.random() * 255);
  rgb[1] = Math.round(Math.random() * 255);
  rgb[2] = Math.round(Math.random() * 255);

  // http://www.w3.org/TR/AERT#color-contrast
  var o = Math.round(((parseInt(rgb[0]) * 299) +
                      (parseInt(rgb[1]) * 587) +
                      (parseInt(rgb[2]) * 114)) / 1000);
  var fore = (o > 125) ? 'black' : 'white';
  var back = 'rgb(' + rgb[0] + ',' + rgb[1] + ',' + rgb[2] + ')';
  $('#bg').css('color', fore); 
  $('#bg').css('background-color', back);
  

}

#bg {
  width: 200px;
  height: 50px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="bg">Text Example</div>

Answer 5

I've found the BackgroundCheck script to be very useful.

It detects the overal brightness of the background (be it a background image or a color), and applies a class to the assigned text-element (background--light or background--dark), dependent on the brightness of the background.

It can be applied to still and moving elements.

(Source)

Answer 6

Interesting question. My immediate thought was to invert the color of the background as the text. This involves simply parsing the background and inverting its RGB value.

Something like this: http://jsfiddle.net/2VTnZ/2/

var rgb = $('#test').css('backgroundColor');
var colors = rgb.match(/^rgb\((\d+),\s*(\d+),\s*(\d+)\)$/);
var brightness = 1;

var r = colors[1];
var g = colors[2];
var b = colors[3];

var ir = Math.floor((255-r)*brightness);
var ig = Math.floor((255-g)*brightness);
var ib = Math.floor((255-b)*brightness);

$('#test').css('color', 'rgb('+ir+','+ig+','+ib+')');