Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Thanks. So reflectance is not a measure of how shiny a screen is, but how white it appears when illuminated by white light? High reflectance = a whiter background?
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In the way you're using whiteness, yes. But Whiteness is actually a separate measure.
Reflectance is a measure of how much incident light is reflected by a surface. It says nothing about how it is reflected - whether smoothly like a mirror, or randomly like a piece of paper.
Whiteness is a measure of how evenly a surface reflects light across the visible spectrum.
Gold, for example, has a very high reflectance, but very low whiteness, since it reflects blue light much less well than red light.
A display for use without a built-in light source, i.e. that relies on ambient light, should have a high reflectance, a high whiteness, and high contrast.