Somewhat related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue Also I fondly remember Hubertus Bigend's IKB suit…
Apparently this is Blue Man Group blue too.
Non-photo blue
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Non-photo blue
#32And my engineering notebooks from the EurekaLabNotebook company use this color for the grid which is a bit disconcerting if you make a copy of the page and the grid disappears and you have only your writing and diagrams.
Interesting, do you have a picture? Most engineering paper has a grid printed only the back so it doesn't show when scanned, but I haven't seen it in blue.
Re: Non-photo blue
#33totally off topic, but also a lovely song by the band pinback.
I was actually listening to the song and then searched for the name. :)
Re: Non-photo blue
#34Back in the late 70's, early 80's, Dungeons and Dragons modules (self contained adventures) used to print all their dungeon maps in light blue because photocopy machines would not pick them up. This was effectively a poor mans protection against piracy.
I had a manual for an assembler (Laser Genius on the C64) that used the opposite approach: the text was black but the pages were a deep red, which would theoretically photocopy to black. In practice the original was about as much a pain to read as the photocopy. EDIT: I remember the letters in the copy having a sort of lighter colour halo around them, which made it readable. I figured was due to the blackness of the…
DRM seems to have a long history of targeting their paying customers with abuse.
Re: Non-photo blue
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "graphics arts cameras" they are referring to are pre-digital. They looked like this: http://www.forgottenartsupplies.com/?what=artifacts&image_id... The goal was to compose a layout into a single image. You created a layout by literally cutting and pasting things onto a board. Then you placed that board in the area at the bottom and took a picture of it that was transferred to film loaded in the top. You're righ…
Kind of strange for the info box to specify a color used in the pre-digital era using a digital sRGB triplet.
Especially since an sRGB triplet only specifies how to perceptually reproduce the color, and film has a different spectral response from the human eye. The dye in non-photo blue probably should actually spectrally be in the blue range rather than having any dye in the red or green range, since it would likely show up on film otherwise.
Re: Non-photo blue
#36When I was younger I worked at a small newspaper which had only recently made the transition from self-publishing the old-fashioned way to laying out the paper with software and sending it off to a publishing company.
The old printing press easily took up half of our little room, and old supplies still littered the shelves and floor. I loved digging through papers (we had copies dating back to the first half of the 20th century) and learning tidbits about the old way of doing things. The rest of the workers had been there 30+ years and would reminisce about late nights spent pasting strips of paper with text and images onto a board, annotating it with a pen that wouldn't show up, taking and developing the photographs, and running the press.
I don't really have anything to contribute, but it's cool to see this pop up on here and learn a little more about it.
Re: Non-photo blue
#37There are certain variety of blue flowers that, when photographed, always come out as pink. Back in the film days (with the delay to process film), it was often the source of a mind trick. "Could've sworn that these flowers were blue…" :)
It apparently has to do with infrared reflectivity and even has a name: Ageratum effect. http://photobotanic.com/color-shift-ageratum-affect/
Interesting! I thought it had to do with UV reflectivity. Thanks for the link.
Re: Non-photo blue
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article was written first in 2005. Back then, digital photography was not so popular. :)
Apparently you remember a different 2005 to me!
I mean that at that time non-digital photography hadn't completely died out. I recall watching a TV show comparing digital and film photography's quality.
Re: Non-photo blue
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe they are referring to a technology of the ancients where they made thin films of photosensitive chemicals, exposed them to light, then processed them to make images. The chemicals varied in which wavelengths would activate them. For instance, red would not activate the paper commonly used for black and white prints, hence the red lights in dark rooms. It is also possible the cameras illuminated the artwork…
The magic word here is "orthochromatic". Orthochromatic photo emulsions (the light-sensitive part of film or photo paper) are only sensitive to short wavelengths of light. The first photo emulsions were all orthochromatic, which makes skin look weird. Later we developed Panchromatic film which is equally sensitive to all colors. It replaced ortho in the camera, but ortho continued to be very useful in the darkroom an…
Not necessarily. Orthochromatic ("correct colour"), or ortho, materials were actually improved-spectrum materials that were sensitive well into the yellow-green. Prior to that, film and paper were really only significantly sensitive to blue/ultraviolet or "actinic" light. Getting to panchromatic ("all colours") was indeed significant, but ortho was advanced technology at the time. (And yes, being able to see what you were doing in the process room was a Good Thing™. Also, rubylith for masking.)
Re: Non-photo blue
#40I made it my new HN topcolor--not bad.