Bright Background Tiles, possible?

[Paradachshund]

Hey guys, this is sort of a general sprite art theory question. When working with background and foreground tiles, I often find that I need to make background tiles a lot darker to make it clear what one can walk on and what one can't. Sometimes I want to make a background that is close to white though, say for a very clean plaster wall or painted concrete. I find that I can't actually make it very white because of the ambiguity that occurs between the background and foreground, which makes a lot of my backgrounds look fairly gray. Does anyone have any suggestions for this? I can post some examples if that would help, but I imagine many of you have dealt with this too. Thanks!

[HughSpectrum]

Can you post any examples of what foreground objects are clashing with a white background?  Pretty much anything should be able to stand out on a white background (ditto black).

[Mathias]

You simply need to play with contrast until right. Use luminosity and saturation differences.

[Tourist]

Some contrasts:
Light vs Dark, light tends to come forward, dark recedes
Gray vs Saturated, saturated colors tend to come forward
Warm vs Cool, warm tends to come forward, cool colors recede
More Detail vs Less Detail, details tend to attract the eye.  they don't bring things forward, but they do hold the viewer attention.

Since your tiles call for light background, you have to use other contrasts to pull the sprites forward.  Reduce the contrast within the background elements, and increase the contrast in the nearer elements, and use warmer, and/or more saturated color in the nearer elements.  Here is a thumbnail of a Bouguereau painting:



The figure is more saturated and has more details than the lighter background.  Even the pale face has more color.  Also notice the ground is a warmer color (yellow-ish stone) compared to the cool colors in the distance.  Another trick is that the light foreground elements (skin) are completely surrounded by darker elements (shadow, hair, clothes), keeping them separate from the background, and coming forward (light on dark) compared to the darker elements. 

Doing this with small sprites is not easy, but the principles are the same.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Paradachshund]

Very clear and helpful there Tourist, I appreciate it! For the most part so far I've done totally fine just darkening backgrounds, but now I'm trying to make a sterile looking lab tileset, and I definitely want it be very white-ish in general. I hadn't thought about reducing details, though now that you say it it seems pretty obvious.

[PypeBros]

my eyes also seem to ignore a lot of in-sprite contrast where there's much background-to-sprite contrast. Typical example is a sprite designed over a black background brought over a white one. It tends to get "flattened".