# Making a heatmap understandable when printed in black ink

What are some good ways to make a heatmap understandable when printed in black ink? (without having to butcher the color version too much, as some reader might have some color printer, or read on the computer)

For example, the following heatmap isn't good as blue and red cannot be easily distinguishable when printed in black and white:

With one color:

• But why did you need 2 colours on the 1st one? You don't have 2 categories anyhow (such as positive vs negative values) and the colours only mislead. – ttnphns May 30 '16 at 8:09
• @ttnphns one color for the "good value", one color for the "bad value". I believe that two colors allow to distinguish more colors than just one. But I agree I could use only one color, which would be one solution. – Franck Dernoncourt May 30 '16 at 8:21
• In your case - using colour to show intensity, continuous value - the only way out would be to add an addidional characteristic to the grayscale display. Such as texture (including effects like noise/dithering). – ttnphns May 30 '16 at 8:34
• one color for the "good value", one color for the "bad value". You do not define the cutpoint between good and bad, so good and bad remain the polars of the continuous scale coinsiding with the plotted value scale. Therefore you are duplicating the information, which isn't right. Also, scientific graphs are mostly to display objective information only, they shouldn't display (by colour or whatever) something what itself is the interpretation of the graph. It is not nice to mix elements-to-be-interpreted with their interpretation (including assesments "good", "wow" etc.) on the same pic. – ttnphns May 30 '16 at 9:03