Colors by Carl Reynolds
Colors by Carl Reynolds “Color is an immensely complex subject, one that draws on concepts and results from physics, physiology, psychology, art, and graphic design. The color of an object depends not only on the object itself, but also on the light source illuminating it, on the color of the surrounding area, and on the human vision system.” ! Computer Graphics Principles and Practice ! — Foley & van Dam1 We were all taught in school that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. This statement implies, all colors can be created from mixing various amounts of red, yellow, and/or blue. This is wrong. Red, yellow, and blue are not the primary colors. Neither are red, green, and blue; or cyan, magenta, and yellow. Each of these is a set of primary colors, but no finite set of colors can be used to create all the colors visible to the human eye. It might be better to call these a color space, instead of primary colors. It is possible to create all the colors within the red-yellow-blue space, by using various amounts of red, yellow, and/or blue, but there are colors outside this space that are visible to the human eye. Figure 1. Depending on what you’re doing, you might want to use one, or another color space. For example, most painters use red, yellow, and blue, along with black, and white. If you’re printing color magazines, or books you’ll probably use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black to do your designs. Many computer graphics artists design their work using red, green, and blue.
[Show full text]