Color

[JeremyLangford]

I'm trying to get a better understanding of color in general so I can better understand color management before I buy a new monitor to use with my Coolscan 9000. Does this sound right?

The sun sends us white light which is a mixture of all the monochromatic colors that our eyes are sensitive to and when we mix both sides of the monochromatic spectrum, we get the extra spectral purples. We can then mix all of the monochromatic colors/extra spectral purples with with white to create less saturated colors. And Black is simply what we see when there is no light present at all. Does this explain how every single color is made? What about mixing the monochromatic colors/extra spectral purples with different grays or even black?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Light is made of red, blue and green. You mix all three in equal amounts and you get grey or white (depending on brightness). Mixing the three in unequal amounts produces every color that exists. Black is the absence of light, as you said.

 

[wolves3012]

Light is made of red, blue and green. You mix all three in equal amounts and you get grey or white (depending on brightness). Mixing the three in unequal amounts produces every color that exists. Black is the absence of light, as you said.

Not quite true. White light contains ALL colours, not red, blue and green. The human eye has receptors sensitive to those colours (with a fair overlap) so the red/green/blue mixture gives the same sensation as true white light - provided it's mixed in the right proportions. Grey is not produced by reduced brightness really, dimming a white light makes it dimmer, not grey. There is no grey light.

 

[kbb]

The sun sends us white light which is a mixture of all the monochromatic colors that our eyes are sensitive to

when we mix both sides of the monochromatic spectrum, we get the extra spectral purples.

We can then mix all of the monochromatic colors/extra spectral purples with with white to create less saturated colors. And Black is simply what we see when there is no light present at all.


1. Best to say 'all the colors', not '...monochromatic colors'
2.The spectrum doesn't have 'sides', it's considered to be one continuous band or frequency range.
3.In 40 years of reading and learning about photographic stuff, I haven't come across the term 'extra spectral purples'. Sounds like a reference to Optical Brighteners used in paper, dyes, laundry detergent, etc.
4.Mix all the colors in the proportions that the human eye, or human-eye-designed imaging machines see as white, and you've got white light.
Adding white to an existing color will in effect desaturate(and brighten) the existing color, though digital color grading systems do not work this way. They tend to give you a control called 'saturation'.
Any good photography textbook will have a section about color as it relates to photography. Cheers.

 

[venchka]

There are books written on digital (electronic) color managemant. Get one and study it before you buy a new monitor. Budget for a monitor calibration hardware thingie. Folks who are serious about these things don't buy office grade (a.k.a. cheap) monitors. Cross processed color film will not conform to proper color management theory.

Good luck!

 

[_mark__]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_model

additive, subtractive, RGB, CMYK.

then there is the philosophy of colour, bibliography here,

http://web.mit.edu/philos/www/color-biblio.html