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Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

colornames.org

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Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#11

Post by ryangittins »

baddox wrote: post #9
ryangittins wrote: post #4

I'm curious—is there a point to giving two separate names to two colors which are indistinguishable from one another to the human eye? There are zero people in the world who can tell #FF4500 from #FF4501, so aren't they effectively the same color?

By induction, doesn’t that mean we would only have one color name?

I don't follow. Two given colors being indistinguishable doesn't imply that any two colors are indistinguishable.

Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#12

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

ryangittins wrote: post #4

I'm curious—is there a point to giving two separate names to two colors which are indistinguishable from one another to the human eye? There are zero people in the world who can tell #FF4500 from #FF4501, so aren't they effectively the same color?

Sure. At a minimum, it seems some folks find it entertaining to do so. That is a point. But naming them for the conventional purpose of indexing into cognitive clusters doesn't work, obviously.

Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#13

Post by reaperducer »

picdit wrote: post #3

A few of my favorites so far: Screaming Grey: #AAAAAA It's Still Basically Black: #000001 Nice: #696969 (lol) These would make for some great candidates: https://colors.lol/ ;)

For a project a few years ago I labeled a color "priest socks." It was something like #000044: very very very very very very dark blue.

That managed to uncover all of the Father Ted fans on the team.

Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#15

Post by roel_v »

bb2018 wrote: post #10
baddox wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By induction, doesn’t that mean we would only have one color name?

If there are zero people who cannot tell two colors apart, they should have the same name. If there is at least one person who cannot tell two colors apart, they should have different names.

What does 'telling a color apart' even mean? I did a mini project some time ago, where I basically did some custom color quantization (it was to reduce an image into a configurable amount of discrete colors, to make a pixel quilt with a manageable amount of distinct fabric colors). So I used CieLAB colors to calculate the 'visual distance' between the available colors and then recursively merged colors until I got to the desired amount. But even a simple algorithm like that, it turned out, could be implemented in several way; each of which gave different, yet equally 'valid' results.

My point being - it's very hard to give a simple, unambiguous meaning to seemingly simple concepts like 'what is a color', 'when are colors the same' and 'are these two colors more similar than those other two'. There is a lot of abstraction between the physics of light and representations of color e.g. on a screen, or in fabric, or when printing.

Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#17

Post by blurbleblurble »

purple-again wrote: post #2

Very first thing I see is a rule that the names must be non offensive and the second thing I see is the color orange named after Trump. Apparently not a very serious attempt.

I tried naming a particular shade of brown "solid poop" and it was rejected. I feel let down.

Re: Colornames.org – A collaborative effort to name all 16.7M colors

#18

Post by Firerouge »

roel_v wrote: post #15
bb2018 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are zero people who cannot tell two colors apart, they should have the same name. If there is at least one person who cannot tell two colors apart, they should have different names.

What does 'telling a color apart' even mean? I did a mini project some time ago, where I basically did some custom color quantization (it was to reduce an image into a configurable amount of discrete colors, to make a pixel quilt with a manageable amount of distinct fabric colors). So I used CieLAB colors to calculate the 'visual distance' between the available colors and then recursively merged colors until I got to…

I think in the case of telling two colors apart, it's can be as simple as presenting them side by side, and seeing if someone can distinguish a difference.
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