Ideas of and about color are based on Theories derived from by artist and scientist alike. There are three things needed for color. The most important of these is light. Light refers mostly to sunlight which provides an even spectrum of color, but any light (ie. florescent, standard, and others) also deliver this necessity just not to its full extent. The Visible Spectrum of light is an electromagnetic wave length between 400-700 nanometers. This was first observed by Sir Isaac Newton who used a ray of sunlight projected through a prism that separated the various colors as it passed through. Artificial light produces a slightly different array of colors. The standard round light bulb is slightly more reddish-yellow where as a florescent light is bluer and contains little to no red. Your best studio lighting will have both to best simulate real light. Natural color is derived by the building of color according to light; this is called Additive Color Theory. In this theory the more color added then the whiter it becomes, less color the more black. This theory uses RGB (red, green, blue) as its primary colors. RGB is what we as humans see and is used by computer monitors, televisions and things of that nature. The secondary colors of RGB are magenta, cyan, and yellow. Surface is the second thing needed for us to see color. This is the object that light hits and we can then see the colors that are produced. Light acts on a surfaces molecular level and the spectrum of colors are either absorbed or reflected. The reflected colors are what we see and thus the color of the surface. This is why they say to wear white if you want to be cool because it reflects all the spectrum where black is absorbing it all. The last thing needed for color is the Receptors. They are what picks up the colors. The retina, which acts like the film of a camera, picks up the color reflected from the object. Within the retina are Rods and Cones. These interpret the light received by the retina. The rods pick up the intensity of the light and the cones determine the color according to RGB (Additive Color Theory). These are the basics of light and color as they refer to the real world. There are problems that exist with the properties of color. Such as pigment being the only means we have of producing color for purposes such as printing and painting. RGB does not apply to this. Subtractive Color Theory is what we use for such things. With Additive Color Theory the more color you add the whiter an object gets, but with Subtractive Color Theory the more color you add the blacker pigment becomes. The primary colors of this theory are magenta, cyan, and yellow. The secondary colors are violet, orange, and green. This is what we are taught as kids in grade school. The industry standards, which use computers and must change from Additive Color Theory to Subtractive Color Theory for printing, use cyan, magenta. and yellow as their primary colors. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is closely related to RGB but in a computer format it contains much more information and is closer to the actual printing process. The Color Wheel is a very useful tool. First invented by Moses Harris, it shows the range of colors and which colors make up another color. The Munsle Color Wheel is the most famous and most commonly used today.
Just to explain all this. Hue is color, value lets that color become lighter or darker, these theories are to explain where colors, or hue, are derived from. |