Poor and Better Background Choices

Here are a couple things to watch out for when putting backgrounds on your website and paying attention to the color of your fonts on top of those particular backgrounds: First off, know that there are certain color combinations that don't settle with viewer's eyes too well. For example:

The above colors are too close in the same value. They would need even a slightly higher contrast to be easily readable. You can adjust the font color, the background color, or both.

The above colors are better in terms of their values. The "text" is more easily read. Becareful though, that you don't make the contrast too sharp, or it may hurt the eyes of the viewer. But it's much better to have a higher contrast than little to no contrast.

Involving Images

The above images are very dark, and already have high contrast, making it hard to create the good contrast between the background and font color. Dark background images aren't bad, but it would be better if the image was similar in value all over. That way, it's easier to create the contrast with font color to make sure you can read the text. These still aren't bad backgrounds, but they wouldn't be good for text. There are ways you can use them without having text overlays that will end up being hard to read.

These are much better choices for background images. Usually it is better to have backgrounds tipped either to the lighter or darker side of values. Sometimes light backgrounds have a "washed-out" look to them, which isn't bad. In fact, it makes dark text more easily readable.