Check if UIColor is dark or bright?

Question

I need to determine whether a selected UIColor (picked by the user) is dark or bright, so I can change the color of a line of text that sits on top of that color, for better

Answer 1

Using Erik Nedwidek's answer, I came up with that little snippet of code for easy inclusion.

- (UIColor *)readableForegroundColorForBackgroundColor:(UIColor*)backgroundColor {
    size_t count = CGColorGetNumberOfComponents(backgroundColor.CGColor);
    const CGFloat *componentColors = CGColorGetComponents(backgroundColor.CGColor);

    CGFloat darknessScore = 0;
    if (count == 2) {
        darknessScore = (((componentColors[0]*255) * 299) + ((componentColors[0]*255) * 587) + ((componentColors[0]*255) * 114)) / 1000;
    } else if (count == 4) {
        darknessScore = (((componentColors[0]*255) * 299) + ((componentColors[1]*255) * 587) + ((componentColors[2]*255) * 114)) / 1000;
    }

    if (darknessScore >= 125) {
        return [UIColor blackColor];
    }

    return [UIColor whiteColor];
}