Best color combinations for charts

Hello, thought I would start this thread to get some different views on chart layouts and color combinations.

My charts at the moment have a light pink background. I find white to white and black to dark but everything else in the middle looks like crap.

I just want something nice to look at that is clear, so I feel more professional.

Do you have any opinions on this?

Here's what my charts look like. I don't know about them looking professional, but they're easy on the eyes.

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/9923/colorxh6.jpg

Yep, that's an improvement already. I'll use it. Thanks

I'd still like to see anyone elses set up if you feel like sharing "the latest trading fashion style"

I like the green and red as well.

Me too. I also like the dotted fib bands in that softcolor, my red ones were beginning to get on my nerves.

I want to get rid of my grid as well, but for some reason I lose the current price line.

figured it out. right click and get rid of grid. easy.

Greetings, my suggestion is do a quick search on google, or similar, for the word "Chromatherapy". After my research nearly a year ago here is what i've been using, and i'm looking at charts about 9 hours a day doing TA and such. Very calming and i'm happy and chipper all day long : )

Cheers,
Thom

http://accrete.com/fx-posts/ea-silly.gif

Heres my suggestion, its nice and easy to look at and i think it looks quite professional. What i like most about it is you can use the colours to make lines stand out or be subtly in the back ground depending on relevance or importance.

If you like the combination this how it works:

Background Dark Grey
Foreground Midnight Blue
Grid Cadet Blue
Bar Up Black
Bar Down Black
Bull Candle Lime Green
Bear Candle Coral
Line Graph Black
Volumes White
Ask Line Red
Stop Levels Red

I also keep the chart on the foreground

Fibs are dotted lines (see period colours)
SAR levels are solid purple
MA's. are solid various shades

For long, medium and short term I use shades of Blue, Red & Yellow respectively, the darker the shade the longer the timeframe.

This seems to work for me.

Lyndon

http://i9.tinypic.com/2ur877o.gif

I like blue and red candles on black... but not real red, a more subdued red.

Bull Candle: Blue
Bear Candle: FireBrick
Bar Up/Down: Lime

black is the best for everything... charts, programming, etc.

it is not hard on the eyes because there is no conflict between the background and the foreground colors and the background is not bright like white and it looks really cool too

except metatrader has what I consider a bug... it doesn't allow you not to print a black background. Therefore if you are big on printing, it will cost you a lot of ink and toner.

Colors are a big problem for me but for a different reason, Im colorblind, thats a b****. I see the primary colors of the rainbow but the second you talk about shades, bam.

Mix 2 colors to get a third, trouble. For me I have to stick to the primary colors of the rainbow.

ycomp

I appologise for stating the obvious, but there may be people out there who didn't know this.

For black and white printing go into Tools then Options then Charts and it gives you an option for colour printing. De-select this then check out the print preview under File.

Lyndon

yes I should have been explicit in what I was saying. There is no way to print color that I know of without the black background. My work around was to change templates before printing. But that is a pain.

You would think something like this would be obvious because black backgrounds are the default in metatrader.

But then again, you would think there would be an option to allow you to display times in your time zone, not the server's.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

Here's another tip which I experimented with. Try brown and grey candles.

Look at green and red and then feel the exciting emotion you get.

Then check out brown and grey - don't you just feel nothing - that may be a good thing.

I started using the colors that accrete is using. I must say, at first it was a little bit of a change. After only a day though, everything is calm, but the indicators, and my averages and such stick out. I find myself not missing little things like I did before.

I figured it was worth a try, and it was well worth it. Something you might look in to.

Millhouse

Well, I'm glad this thread has produced a positive result. I like Accretes charts too and will probably give those colours a try.

I got a bit confused because I went to the color therapy link and I just kept on reading and reading and reading, ended up reading a whole scientific and historical study of color therapy through the ages. Ended up too much info to make a decision.

my guess is that a sedative color for the background is optimal... something like a light grey/blue. even the FF background color would work.

I find myself changing schemes depending on what information I'm looking for. But this is my favourite scheme...

LOL. I was just watching the Tee-Vee and looked back at the screen and went to change the time-frame on my posting.

All together now...

"...DUMB ASSE!!!"

Yes, I've also got a few different schemes now, based on all the inputs.

Those dotted trend lines are pretty nifty.

Tell me about it. I always wonder why the charts won't zoom in.