Generating a color spectrum for an image

#1

Post by evakhoury » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

Generating a color spectrum for an image
amandahinton.com

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#2

Post by MontagFTB » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

Visually the results are very compelling! It also gives an at-a-glance intuition about the image that the bar-style options fail to convey. I am a fan.

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#3

Post by orbital-decay » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 1:17 AM UTC

Now make it polar and you almost have a vectorscope...

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#4

Post by ranger_danger » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 1:43 AM UTC

Is there source available for this?

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#5

Post by loneboat » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:37 AM UTC

I really like the idea of iteration 7, but I feel like it would work a lot better with some minimum height on the y axis. Letting it peter out to zero loses the "spectrum-ness" of it, and it just looks like various random color blobs. Maybe could have a fixed minimum height, and somehow use saturation to distinguish "truly zero here" from "really low amount here".

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#6

Post by vessenes » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 5:43 AM UTC

I like the final idea, but I think I'd like it better on a log scale -- so many of the colors get basically one or two pixels of height.

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#7

Post by nopakos » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 6:41 AM UTC

Iteration 7 would be interesting as a video (for a video).

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#8

Post by Daub » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 7:20 AM UTC

This is a very interesting project. As a design teacher, I recommend to my students that they do not employ color swatches for anything other than flat color designs. Certainly for an animation, a photo or a movie such simplified visualizations have little value as they do not convey the kind of ranges information this project is addressing.

That being said, I am certain that there is no 2D method of visualizing such fundamentally 3D information as color.

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#9

Post by pixelpoet » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 10:05 AM UTC

This will doubtless be an unpopular comment, but the "Do not" imperative at the bottom of the page was super jarring to me. I really don't appreciate random websites trying to tell me what to do in such a direct imperative tone, and would never write like that even if it were my intention; not to mention that it doesn't actually prevent anything.

Pity, because it was a nice article.

Re: Generating a color spectrum for an image

#10

Post by throawayonthe » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 10:42 AM UTC

pixelpoet wrote: post #9

This will doubtless be an unpopular comment, but the "Do not" imperative at the bottom of the page was super jarring to me. I really don't appreciate random websites trying to tell me what to do in such a direct imperative tone, and would never write like that even if it were my intention; not to mention that it doesn't actually prevent anything. Pity, because it was a nice article.