What a charcoal screen is used for
- A dark background that is easier on the eyes than pure black
- Checking that a display is on when true black is ambiguous
- Moody, low-key backgrounds for photography
Charcoal screen online: #36454F at full screen
Charcoal is #36454F, a dark desaturated blue-grey. It is the colour most dark-mode interfaces settle on instead of pure black, because a pure black background with white text produces halation — the text appears to bleed at the edges, especially for people with astigmatism.
It is also a practical way to confirm a screen is on. On an OLED, a true black page is indistinguishable from a powered-off panel; charcoal removes that ambiguity while staying dark.
How to get a full screen charcoal background
Press the fullscreen button on the player above, or the F key. Escape returns you to the page. On a desktop browser F11 does the same job and hides the browser's own toolbars as well.
The colour box is a control, not a picture: use the hex field to enter any value, pick another shade from the palette, or download the current colour as a PNG at your screen's resolution. Whatever you set is written into the address bar, so the link you copy reproduces exactly what you are looking at.