top of page

COLOR and LIGHT

Gillerman

 

Color systems are constructs with generally predictable sets of rules, but there are many different systems of color – and …  LIGHT and PIGMENT act very differently.

PRIMARY COLOR: is a color that cannot be created by mixing other color

​

PIGMENTS and LIGHT act differently and have DIFFERENT PRIMARY COLORS.

 

Pigment is referred to as Subtractive color

Light is referred to as Additive color

PIGMENT

Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, Blue

Compliments: Green, Violet, Orange (secondary colors)

(Red-violet, Blue-violet, Blue-green, Yellow-green, Yellow-orange, and Red-orange are tertiary colors)

Subtractive |  Absorb or Reflect Light - R + Y + B = BLACK/MUD (INK/Pigment)

LIGHT

Primary Colors: Red, Green, Blue

Adding R + G light makes yellow (Y).

G + B = cyan (C) and R + B = magenta (M)

Combining all three additive primaries makes white light.

Additive  |  R + G + B = WHITE LIGHT

PRINT (pigment)

Subtractive Primaries: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow

The subtractive primaries are C, M and Y. Cyan absorbs red; hence C is sometimes called "minus red" (-R). Similarly, M is -G and Y is -B.

CMYK: K = "Key" (sometimes Black)

PRISM (Solid Glass Optics)

White Light (Sunlight) enters the prism and is separated into different wavelengths of component colors,

the solar light spectrum, colors in a Rainbow.

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet

(Realized first by Sir Isaac Newton - 1666)

The Solar Light Spectrum

Rainbow colors are created when raindrops refract the light from the sun into a color spectrum. A prism does the same thing.

R  O  Y   G    B  I  V
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet

Light travels in waves of different lengths. The "Visible Light Spectrum" of light and colors we see are only a small part of the "electromagnetic spectrum".

bottom of page