Research work on Colour
By Jennita
2014
1. How many colours can the human eye see and distinguish?
Result Standardized Bibliographic Entry (w/surrounding text) Result
"The tremendous variability in the spectral Calkins, David J. Mapping color composition of light reflected from surfaces perception to a physiological lends itself to eliciting a daunting gamut of substrate. The Visual more than 100,000 discriminable colors, 100,000 Neurosciences Volumes 1 and 2 and the variation in the names we assign [institutional subscription these colors is limited only by scope of required]. The MIT Press, 1993. human experience."
Wyszecki, Gunter. Color. "Experts estimate that we can distinguish Chicago: World Book Inc, 2006: 10 million perhaps as many as 10 million colors." 824.
"Humans, other apes, and Old World monkeys have trichromatic vision, with Kleiner, Kurt. What we gave up for eyes containing three colour receptors, colour vision. "New Scientist." 2.3 million sensitive to blue, green, and yellow-red. January 24, 2004: 12. They allow us and our Old World relatives to distinguish around 2.3 million colours."
Myers, David G. Psychology. "Our difference threshold for colors is so Michigan: Worth Publishers, 1995: low that we can discriminate some 7 million 7 million 165. different color variations (Geldard, 1972)."
"It has been estimated that humans can distinguish roughly 10 million different colors, although the identification of a Color. Wikipedia. 2006. 10 million specific color is highly subjective, since even the two eyes of a single individual perceive colors slightly different."
2. How many colours can be displayed on the computer screen?
Computer Monitors Back | Up | Next
Resolution
Monitors display images with several characteristics that you can control: resolution, brightness and contrast, and color depth.
Resolution and color depth are usually adjusted with the software driver that works with the computer's operating system through the graphics adapter card.
In most Microsoft Windows operating systems you can adjust the resolution and color depth by going to the Start Menu > Settings > Control Panels > Display > Settings.
Resolution is how many pixels your screen displays for a given size dimension, and is given in pixel dimensions, such as 640 x 480. Other popular sizes are 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768. For example, 800 x 600 means your monitor's screen will have 800 pixels on the long horizontal side and 600 pixels on the short vertical side. More resolution, such as 1024 x 768, means smaller pixels and finer detail.
Monitors also come in different sizes. A 17 inch monitor usually refers to the size of the diagonal measurement of the screen, although the actual usable area of the screen is usually less.
My "17 inch" Sony Trinitron monitor has a usable area of 12.5 inches across, 9 inches high, and 15.75 inches on the diagonal. When I run my monitor at a resolution of 800 x 600, there are 800 pixels across 12.5 inches, or about 64 pixels per inch. A "15 inch" monitor may be about 10.75 by 8 inches, with a diagonal of 13.25 inches. This monitor, running at the same 800 x 600 resolution will display images at about 75 pixels per inch.
Two physically different sized monitors running at exactly the same display size will have different sized pixels. At 800 x 600, the "17 inch" monitor will have pixels that are 1/64 inch in size, and the "15 inch" will have pixels that are 1/75 inch in size.
On a "17 inch" monitor running at 800 x 600 display, the pixels will be 1/64 of an inch in size. On that same monitor, running at 1024 x 768 display size, the pixels will be about 1/86th of an inch in size. They get smaller because we must fit more of them (1024 instead of 800) into the same space.
The exact same image will appear larger on a 800 x 600 screen than on a 1024 x 768 screen.
Color Depth
Color depth describes how many colors that can be displayed on a monitor's screen. Color depth is usually talked about in bits. A bit is an abbreviation for "binary digit".
Computers speak a binary language of bits where there are only ones and zeros. Since there are only two numbers (1 and 0) the math is called "binary" (bi meaning two, like two wheels on a bicycle).
Each of the three primary colors (Red, Blue and Green) has a number of bits that describes its color "depth", or the number of shades of that particular color that can be displayed.
The number of colors are usually talked about in exponential notation, such as the number 2 raised to the second power (two squared, 2x2=4), or two to the eighth power (2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2=256). The more bit depth a color has, the more shades of that color can be displayed.
"True" color is also called 24-bit color . Here, each color is 8 bits, for a total of 24 bits. Since each color has 256 shades, we can multiply 256 for red, times 256 for green, times 256 for blue and get millions of colors, (256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216). Millions of colors are pretty much what's accepted for a monitor's colors to look "true" to the human eye.
Of course you can have more than 24-bit color , such as 32-bit color , which can represent even more colors and is better, but only experts can see the difference. You can also have 16-bit, or "hi" color , which represents thousands of colors, and most of the time does not look too bad, except in areas of subtle shading and tonal change, like in a large area of featureless sky such as in a sunset photo. Then the lack of a deeper color depth will show up as banding in the sky.
You can also have less colors, such as 4 bit color with only 16 total colors, or 8 bit color with 256 total colors. Continuous tone images, such a normal photographs of daytime or astronomical subjects will usually look terrible at these low color depths because there are more real colors in the image than can be displayed.
Resolution and color depth are intimately tied together in a monitor's display. The amount you can have of each is dependant on the amount of video memory that your video card has. Note that video memory is different than regular system ram memory or hard drive memory. Naturally, higher resolution and deeper color depth require more video memory. If you have at least 2 megabytes of video memory on your video card, you should be able to run 24-bit true color at 800 x 600 resolution, if your monitor supports it.
The photos on this web site are 24-bit full color images, and should be viewed on a monitor being driven by a video card that supports 24-bit true color . You can "get-by" if you only have 16-bit "hi-color", but they will look better in 24-bit color . If your monitor is running at anything less than 16-bit high color (sometimes also called thousands of colors), then the photos will probably not look good. If they look grainy, or pock-marked, weird, or just plain bad, it's probably because your monitor is not set at a sufficient color depth.
On an Apple® Mac®, go to Control Panels > Monitors and set the color depth to thousands or millions of colors if your video card supports it. If these options are not immediately apparent, you can try holding down the option key on the keyboard as you mouse click on the option button in the Monitors control panel. You can try lowering the resolution of your screen display. This may allow you to achieve a greater color -depth.
On a Windows machine, go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panels > Display > Settings and see what's the highest color depth you can achieve. You can try lowering the display resolution to get a higher color depth. 3. How mac displays colour?
Color displays
Color monitors for desktop microcomputers are based on cathode ray tubes (CRTs) or back- lighted flat-screen technologies. Because monitors transmit light, displays use the red-green-blue (RGB) additive color model. The RGB model is called "additive" because a combination of the three pure colors red, green, and blue "adds up" to white light:
The computer's operating system organizes the display screen into a grid of x and y coordinates, like a checkerboard. Each little box on the screen is called a "pixel" (short for "picture element"). Current Macintosh and Windows displays are composed of these grids of pixels.
Pixels and color depth
To control the color of each pixel on the screen, the operating system must dedicate a small amount of memory to each pixel. In aggregate this memory dedicated to the display screen is often referred to as "video RAM" or "VRAM" (Video Random Access Memory). In the simplest form of black-and-white computer displays, a single bit of memory is assigned to each pixel. Because each memory bit is either positive or negative (0 or 1), a 1-bit display system can manage only two colors (black or white) for each pixel on the screen:
If more bits of memory are dedicated to each pixel in the display, more colors can be managed. When 8 bits of memory are dedicated to each pixel, each pixel could be one of 256 colors. (256 = 2 to the eighth power; in other words, 256 is the maximum number of unique combinations of zeros and ones you can make with 8 bits.) This kind of computer display is called an "8-bit" or "256-color" display, and is common on older laptop computers and desktop machines. Although the exact colors that an 8-bit screen can display are not fixed, there can never be more than 256 unique colors on the screen at once:
If still more memory is dedicated to each pixel, nearly photographic color is achievable on the computer screen. "True-color" or "24-bit" color displays can show millions of unique colors simultaneously on the computer screen. True-color images are composed by dedicating 24 bits of memory to each pixel; 8 each for the red, green, and blue components (8 + 8 + 8 = 24):
The amount of VRAM dedicated to each screen pixel in the display is commonly referred to as the "color depth" of the monitor. Most Macintosh and Windows microcomputers sold in recent years can easily display color depths in thousands (16-bit) or millions (24-bit) of simultaneous colors. To check your computer system for the range of color depths available to you, use the "Display" control panel (Windows) or the "Monitors" control panel (Macintosh):
Color depth and graphics files
The terminology and memory schemes used in color displays are directly analogous to those used to describe color depth in graphics files. In their uncompressed states, 8-bit, or 256-color, image files dedicate 8 bits to each color pixel in the image. In 8-bit images the 256 colors that make up the image are stored in an array called a "palette" or an "index." The color palette may also be referred to as a "color lookup table" (CLUT). As mentioned above, 8-bit images can never contain more than 256 unique colors:
True-color, or 24-bit, images are typically much larger than 8-bit images in their uncompressed state, because 24 bits of memory are dedicated to each pixel, typically arranged in three monochrome layers — red, green, and blue:
4. Different channels of Colour spaces.
There are five major models, that sub-divide into others, which are: CIE, RGB, YUV, HSL/HSV, and CMYK.
Additive color mixing
Subtractive color mixing
CIE
CIE 1931 XYZ
Main article: CIE 1931 color space
(aka "CIE 1931") The first attempt to produce a color space based on measurements of human color perception and it is the basis for almost all other color spaces.
CIELUV
Main article: CIELUV
A modification of "CIE 1931 XYZ" to display color differences more conveniently. The CIELUV space is especially useful for additive mixtures of lights, due to its linear addition properties.
CIELAB
Main article: Lab color space
The intention of CIELAB (or L*a*b* or Lab) is to produce a color space that is more perceptually linear than other color spaces. Perceptually linear means that a change of the same amount in a color value should produce a change of about the same visual importance. CIELAB has almost entirely replaced an alternative related Lab color space "Hunter Lab". This space is commonly used for surface colors, but not for mixtures of (transmitted) light.
CIEUVW
Main article: CIE 1964 color space
Measurements over a larger field of view than the "CIE 1931 XYZ" color space which produces slightly different results. RGB
Main articles: RGB color model and RGB color spaces
RGB (Red, Green, Blue) describes what kind of light needs to be emitted to produce a given color. Light is added together to create form from out of the darkness. RGB stores individual values for red, green and blue. RGB is not a color space, it is a color model. There are many different RGB color spaces derived from this color model, some of which appear below.
RGBA is RGB with an additional channel, alpha, to indicate transparency. sRGB
Main article: sRGB color space
The sRGB color space, or standard RGB (Red Green Blue), is an RGB color space created cooperatively by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft Corporation for use on the Internet. It has been endorsed by the W3C , Exif , Intel , Pantone , Corel , and many other industry players. It is also well accepted by Open Source software such as the GIMP, and is used in proprietary and open graphics file formats such as SVG. sRGB is intended as a common color space for the creation of images for viewing on the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW), the resultant color space chosen using a gamma of 2.2, the average response to linear voltage levels of CRT displays at that time.
Adobe RGB
Main article: Adobe RGB color space
The Adobe RGB color space is an RGB color space developed by Adobe Systems in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary colors on a device such as the computer display. The Adobe RGB colorspace encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors specified by the Lab color space, improving upon the gamut of the RGB color space primarily in cyan-greens.
Adobe Wide Gamut RGB
Main article: Adobe Wide Gamut RGB color space
The Adobe Wide Gamut RGB color space is an RGB color space developed by Adobe Systems as an alternative to the standard sRGB color space. It is able to store a wider range of color values than sRGB. The Wide Gamut color space is an expanded version of the Adobe RGB color space, developed in 1998. As a comparison, the Adobe Wide Gamut RGB color space encompasses 77.6% of the visible colors specified by the Lab color space, whilst the standard Adobe RGB color space covers just 50.6%. One of the downsides to this color space is that approximately 8% of the colors representable are imaginary colors that do not exist and are not representable in any medium. This means that potential color accuracy is wasted for reserving these unnecessary colors.
Other RGB spaces
There is an open ended set of RGB spaces; by picking new red, green, blue primaries and a gamma value, anyone can invent one. The following have articles:
Pro Photo RGB color space
scRGB
Rec. 709
Rec. 2020
Luma plus chroma/chrominance
YIQ, YUV, YDbDr
Main articles: YIQ, YUV and YDbDr
YIQ was formerly used in NTSC (North America, Japan and elsewhere) television broadcasts for historical reasons. This system stores a luma value with two chroma or chrominance values, corresponding approximately to the amounts of blue and red in the color. It corresponds closely to the YUV scheme used in PAL (Australia, Europe, except France, which uses SECAM) television except that the YIQ color space is rotated 33° with respect to the YUV color space. The YDbDr scheme used by SECAM television is rotated in another way. (work needed)
YPbPr, YCbCr
Main articles: YPbPr and YCbCr
YPbPr is a scaled version of YUV. It is most commonly seen in its digital form, YCbCr, used widely in video and image compression schemes such as MPEG and JPEG. xvYCC
Main article: xvYCC xvYCC is an extension of YCbCr that extends the color gamut beyond the R/G/B primaries specified by BT.709.
Hue and saturation
HSV
Main article: HSV color space
(hue, saturation, value), also known as HSB (hue, saturation, brightness), is often used by artists because it is often more natural to think about a color in terms of hue and saturation than in terms of additive or subtractive color components. HSV is a transformation of an RGB colorspace, and its components and colorimetry are relative to the RGB colorspace from which it was derived.
HSL
Main article: HSL color space
(hue, saturation, lightness/luminance), also known as HSL, HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) or HSD (hue, saturation, darkness), is quite similar to HSV, with "lightness" replacing "brightness". The difference is that the brightness of a pure color is equal to the brightness of white, while the lightness of a pure color is equal to the lightness of a medium gray.
CMYK
Main article: CMYK color space
CMYK is used in the printing process, because it describes what kind of inks need to be applied so the light reflected from the substrate and through the inks produces a given color. One starts with a white substrate (canvas, page, etc.), and uses ink to subtract color from white to create an image. CMYK stores ink values for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. There are many CMYK color spaces for different sets of inks, substrates, and press characteristics (which change the dot gain or transfer function for each ink and thus change the appearance).
Commercial color spaces
Natural Color System (NCS)
Pantone Matching System (PMS)
RAL
Special-purpose color spaces
The rg chromaticity space is used in computer vision applications, and shows the color of light (red, yellow, green etc.), but not its intensity (dark, bright).
LMS color space (long, medium, short), a perceptual color space based on the response functions of the cones in the retina of the eye. It is mostly used in psychometric research. Obsolete color spaces
Early color spaces had two components. They largely ignored blue light because the added complexity of a three-component process provided only a marginal increase in fidelity when compared to the jump from monochrome to two-component color.
RG for early Technicolor film
RGK for early color printing
5. Colour Psychology
6. Case studies on colour
Color is just one of many tools that can identify your brand.
It can be from the use of a single consistent hue, or a scheme of multiple colors. But most of the brands with strong color ties are those that use one dominant color.
In this case study, we’re going to look at six different color outlines and how they connect to brands. For each color, we’ll look at a well-known brand and how it uses color, the overall impact and how you can choose a color for your brand.
Red
Coca-Cola is likely the most widely-recognized brand in the world that uses the color red.
The brand has stuck with the same color and uses it with only black and white, making the color – even without the logo present – symbolic of the soft drink giant.
Red works here because the color activates the senses, evoking people to act. (In this case drink a Coke.) Red because of its associations with energy, attention, passion and activity make this an excellent choice for a food or beverage brand. There are even some research studies out there that connect the color to hunger, making it also a popular choice for other types of food-related businesses.
Blue
AIG Insurance wants your to trust them; blue is the color that most strongly associates with that idea.
The insurance giant has used a color (and combinations of blue hues) that visually connect to a sense of reliability and dependability. The color is a strong choice, but may not set the company apart from other insurance groups because blue is a dominant branding color among insurance and financial institutions.
Yellow
Sprint, a mobile phone service provider, uses yellow to set itself apart from all of the other companies in a somewhat crowded market. (Notably companies in this industry use a wide range of colors to represent their brands.)
What Sprint does with yellow as a branding color is makes people stop and look. The color is bright and positive and makes you associate in a warm and engaging way with the brand. The color choice represents creativity (or innovation in the case of a technology/communications- based business) and optimism. What Sprint is trying to communicate is that they are a brand that you can connect with in a postive way and you will notice the company as much as you are noticed using their brand.
Green
John Deere has become famous for its use of green. The brand and color association were event the inspiration for a song, ―John Deere Green‖ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSJtYae8bQ by Joe Diffie that spent time in the Billboard Country Top 10 in the 1990s.
That’s definitely the way you want color to work with your brand. Not only is a color green; it’s John Deere green.
Further, the color is a natural choice for this business because of what they do. John Deere makes tractors and lawn equipment, which relate green’s most common color association – nature.
Orange
Amazon.com’s orange smile is part of the world economy. The simple curve is the one of the most well-known instances of orange brand identity outside the orange juice industry.
The color is fun and playful and makes you want to stick around and enjoy what you are seeing on the site. The color, which is made from red and yellow, combines attributes of each to evoke feeling of boldness (Amazon likes to tout itself as a innovative retailer) with energy and life (you can buy anything you might need from this company).
Multi-Color
Google is anywhere and has everything you might ever need. That’s what the multi-colored palette and logo communicate to users.
While multi-colored palettes can be difficult to use and make part of an identity, a few companies including Google have mastered it. The use of four distinct and basic colors – blue, red, yellow and green – communicate just that. Google is easy to use and basic. The multi-colored identification strategy communicates diversity in content, use and application as well. (All things that the search engine giant are known for.)
Ways to Use Color for Your Brand
Now that you’ve seen some great ways major companies are using color as part of their branding scheme, how can you use this every day?
It’s easier than you might think.
As a designer, you should consider how you use color for your personal brand, just as companies use color for corporate branding. Contest holders should consider how a color choice will stick to their company identity for years to come when settling on a logo or website design.
Here are a few ways to use your branded color:
– resume, social media cover images, Twitter background and business cards.
covers, pens, folders, etc.
or images such as head shots, or on the backs of business cards. Also if you plan to distribute shirts or other items, get them in your color.
Color and Branding Infographic
7. Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of FrenchImpressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.[1][2] The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.
Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.
8. Small object but big Impact
― If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.‖
Napoleon Hill.
―First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.‖
Napoleon Hill.
An idea may come into anyone’s mind at any time. If the idea is developed and well planned before making it a reality, that same tiny idea may become the source of great works!