This is just a brief overview of the science of color, a complex and technical subject, but I thought you might like to know the basics. (If you had art classes in school you may already know this.)
Color originates in light. The light that comes from the sun is “full-spectrum” white light which contains all colors (evident when you see the refraction of light displayed in a rainbow). There are two types of color systems: additive and subtractive.
Subtractive color is the process of using pigment to color a surface—like paint or ink, or the color that an object possesses naturally, like the skin of an apple. When white light hits a surface, the material’s surface absorbs all of the spectrum of light EXCEPT for the part that corresponds with the color of the object, which is reflected back to your eye. So, in the example of a red apple, the skin of the apple absorbs all of the light spectrum except red and the red is reflected to your eye. I won’t go into what your eye does with the light—that’s another story.
The primary colors of the subtractive system of color are red, yellow and blue. All other colors are derived from combinations of these three colors. The color wheel, shown below, is a device artists and designers use to visualize the relationships between colors.
The other color system—additive color—is based on colors that are generated with light, as in computer monitors and televisions. The primary colors of this system are red, green and blue (RGB). When combined, red and green light rays produce yellow, blue and green produce cyan, red and blue produce magenta. Red, green and blue (light) mix to create white.
For more information about color, visit:
http://www.colormatters.com
http://colortheory.liquisoft.com/
1 comment:
Hi
Great information in this post and the primary colors of the subtractive system of color are red, yellow and blue. All other colors are derived from combination of these three colors.
James Parker.
Web design Firm
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