Color theory: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:23, 8 January 2025

Revision as of 23:06, 9 January 2025

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Subsequently, German and English scientists established in the late 19th century that color perception is best described in terms of a different set of primary colors—red, green and blue-violet ([[RGB color model|RGB]])—modeled through the additive mixture of three monochromatic lights. Subsequent research anchored these primary colors in the differing responses to light by three types of [[Cone cell|color receptors]] or ''cones'' in the [[retina]] ([[trichromacy]]). On this basis the quantitative description of the color mixture or colorimetry developed in the early 20th century, along with a series of increasingly sophisticated models of [[color space]] and color perception, such as the [[opponent process]] theory.

Across the same period, industrial chemistry radically expanded the color range of lightfast synthetic pigments, allowing for substantially improved saturation in color mixtures of dyes, paints, and inks. It also created the dyes and chemical processes necessary for color photography. As a result, three-color printing became aesthetically and economically feasible in mass printed media, and the artists' color theory was adapted to primary colors most effective in inks or photographic dyes: cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY). (In printing, dark colors are supplemented by black ink, knowncalled as"key," to make the [[CMYK]] system; in both printing and photography, white is provided by the color of the paper.) These CMY primary colors were reconciled with the RGB primaries, and subtractive color mixing with additive color mixing, by defining the CMY primaries as substances that ''absorbed'' only one of the retinal primary colors: cyan absorbs only red (−R+G+B), magenta only green (+R−G+B), and yellow only blue-violet (+R+G−B). It is important to add that the CMYK, or process, color printing is meant as an economical way of producing a wide range of colors for printing, but is deficient in reproducing certain colors, notably orange and slightly deficient in reproducing purples. A wider range of colors can be obtained with the addition of other colors to the printing process, such as in [[Pantone]]'s [[Hexachrome]] printing ink system (six colors), among others.

[[File:Munsell-system.svg|thumb|right|[[Munsell color system|Munsell]]'s 1905 color system represents colors using three color-making attributes, ''value'' (lightness), ''chroma'', and ''hue''.]]