Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
blog.asmartbear.com
Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
1–10 of 56 posts
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#2I'm happy to see someone investigating color, and the way we perceive it. So many color theory books are more mystical than scientific; it's wonderful to see a physiological model.
I suspect that we continue to teach the RGB, RBY, and CYMK color wheels because they behave correctly with respect to the behavior of particular physical media. Yellow-looking paint and blue-looking paint do make green-looking paint. Red-looking light and green-looking light do make yellow-looking light.
The (physiologically accurate?) four-primary-color model proposed here does not correctly predict the world: yellow and blue act as additive color opposites; red and green act as subtractive color opposites. No one set of pigments or lights will ever consistently behave the way this 4 color wheel predicts.
We need multiple systems because colored objects mix by multiple mechanisms.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#3while the article looks like a mashup of text-books and wikipedia (not to mention the self-aggrandization) and is interesting, this looks like SEO spam, one of these sites that sells you some book on how to get rich quick or how to start your startup.
I think I'll stick with my Johannes Itten.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#4The budding designer in me loves these articles. While I can intellectually understand the color wheel(s), I'm still having issues grasping it emotionally and creatively.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#5while the article looks like a mashup of text-books and wikipedia (not to mention the self-aggrandization) and is interesting, this looks like SEO spam, one of these sites that sells you some book on how to get rich quick or how to start your startup. I think I'll stick with my Johannes Itten.
You talk about what the article "looks like", but have you actually read it?
I found it to be a well-written, well-researched introduction to some of the problems in color theory. If that's what you mean by "a mashup", then I guess all secondary literature is.
As for the site, asmartbear is no stranger to these parts, and Jason's posts are well-regarded.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#6while the article looks like a mashup of text-books and wikipedia (not to mention the self-aggrandization) and is interesting, this looks like SEO spam, one of these sites that sells you some book on how to get rich quick or how to start your startup. I think I'll stick with my Johannes Itten.
Do you have anything to back that claim? Even with Adblock Plus disabled, I don't see anything that could be descriped as "SEO spam".
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#7I wish I could upvote this twice. I hadn't realized that our actual perception of color was so filtered from the physical spectrum.
I find it incredibly fascinating, from a philosophical perspective, that there are literally color combinations (i.e, greenish-red) that, despite lying within the physical spectrum to which our eyes are sensitive, we cannot see, cannot even imagine.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#8The checkerboard illusion at the end amazes me every time I see it.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#9This article tries to sensationalize and obfuscate something that is pretty simple in reality.
RGB are the primaries in light. By mixing these three colors you can create any color the human vision system can perceive (yes, because of tristimulus).
When white light hits a material, some of those RGB wavelengths are absorbed (subtracted). RGB - GB(Cyan) = Red, RGB - RG(Yellow) = Blue, RGB - RB(Magenta) = Green. Thus, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow act as primaries (colors from which you can construct any visible color) for materials that absorb, not emit light.
The forth primary in print media, Black, is simply added because inks are imperfect and a mix of CMY inks yields a kind of murky black (plus it wastes ink).
It's a historical simplification to say that "red, yellow and blue" are the primaries for paint, the red works like a magenta, the blue works like a cyan. They sell Cyan/Yellow/Magenta primaries for oil/acrylics and if you paint with these you'll get a brighter, wider palette but you can get there with a traditional palette by adding whites and other pigments.
The tone of the article is awful. The opening sentence, "Ask any artist..." is flatly untrue, this stuff is basic for most visual artists (I first learned about the CMY primaries in a community ed. Painting I class). It's not that the article is factually wrong, it's just basic stuff presented as if it were obscure or clever.
None of this makes the color wheel or any other color theory any less valid. The "four color" wheel he lists at the end is not wrong, it's just silly: you could pick any points on the wheel and their opposites and have the same thing.
Re: Color wheels are wrong? How color vision actually works
#10I must have missed something as a seven-year-old, because this is the first I've heard that blue and yellow were supposed to be opposites. To me, it always made sense that blue and orange were opposites, both conceptually and visually. The same with purple and yellow.