"Subtractive colors are those which reflect less light when they are mixed together," says Raiselis. Additive color theory is based on objects that emit light, while subtractive deals with material objects like paintings. So the distinction in color systems really comes down to the chemical makeup of the objects involved and how they reflect light. "The long-wavelength sensitive cone, for example, has peak sensitivity in the yellow-green part of the spectrum, not the red part." "It is often mistakenly written that RGB are optimal because the visual system has receptors in the eye that respond optimally to red, green and blue light but this is a misconception," he says. Most sources will tell you red, green and blue are the additive primaries, as Newton originally proposed, but Westland says it's a lot more complicated than that. Your computer screen and TV work this way."īut the range - or gamut - of colors that can be produced from three additive primaries varies depending upon what the primaries are. When mixed together, red, green and blue lights make white light. And the red and green also make a lighter color - and a surprise to nearly everyone who sees it - yellow! So red, green and blue are additive primaries because they can make all other colors, even yellow. The red and blue mix is lighter too, a beautiful magenta. (Spoiler: We're about to get into secondary colors!) "When the blue flashlight circle intersects the green one, there is a lighter blue-green shape," he says. The subtractive primaries also modulate red, green and blue light, but a little less directly." The additive primaries do this very directly by controlling the amounts of red, green and blue light that we see and therefore almost directly map to the visual responses. Those are roughly sensitive to red, green and blue light. "That is to modulate the responses of the three types of cone photoreceptors in our eyes. "Both systems are accomplishing one task," says Mark Fairchild, professor and director of the Program of Color Science/Munsell Color Science Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. This leads to two types of colour mixing, additive and subtractive." "Light enters our eyes in two ways: (1) directly from a light source and (2) reflected from an object. "We see because light enters our eyes," he says. Stephen Westland, Professor of Colour Science at the University of Leeds in England breaks things down into simple terms, in an email. Differentiating Between Additive and Subtractive Colors
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |