How many derivatives of tertiary colors exist. Concepts of primary, secondary and tertiary colors. Emotional response to color

Primary Colors: A distinction is made between the primary natural colors of light and the primary colors of pigments. These are colors that are not created by mixing. If you mix the primary red, blue and green rays, you get white light. If you mix the primary magenta (magenta), cyan (blue) and yellow - the colors of the pigments - we get black.

Secondary Colors: Obtained by mixing two primary colors.

Tertiary colors: formed by mixing primary and secondary colors.

Additional colors:

located on opposite sides of the chromatic circle. So, for example, for red is the complementary green

RGB (abbreviation of English words

Red, Green, Blue - red, green,

blue) is an additive color model, usually describing the way color is synthesized for color reproduction.

The choice of primary colors is due to the physiology of color perception by the retina of the human eye. The RGB color model has found wide application in technology.

CMY model: based on cyan (Cyan), magenta (Magenta), and yellow (Yellow). The model describes the reflected colors (paints), which are formed as a result of subtracting part of the spectrum of incident light on the surface. When two colors are mixed, the result is darker than both original ones. From the English Subtract (subtract), the CMY model is called subtractive.

CMYK model : The CMYK model describes the actual process of color printing on an offset press and a color printer. The fourth component of K is black (blacK) color. Primary subtractive colors are quite bright and therefore not suitable for reproducing dark colors. Using only cyan, magenta and yellow, you cannot print black - it turns out to be a dirty brown color. The black color in the CMYK model is also used to emphasize shadows, creating dark shades. The use of black paint can significantly reduce the consumption of other paints. Color intensity varies from 0% to 100%.

5) HSL system

Another popular color system is HSL (from "hue, saturation, lightness" - "hue, saturation, brightness"). This system has several options, where instead of saturation, chroma (chroma), luminance (luminance) is used along with brightness (value)

(HSV/HLV). It is this system that corresponds to how the human eye sees color.

YUV is a color model in which color is represented as 3 components - brightness (Y) and two color differences (U and V).

The model is widely used in broadcasting and storage/processing of video data. The luminance component contains the "black and white" (grayscale) image, and the remaining two components contain information to restore the desired color. This was handy at the time of the advent of color TV for compatibility with older black and white TVs.

In the YUV color space, there is one component that represents luminance (luma) and two other components that represent color (chroma). While luminance is transmitted with all the details, some details in the components of a color difference signal devoid of luminance information can be removed by downsampling (filtering or averaging), which can be done in several ways (i.e. there are many formats for saving the image in YUV color space).

6. General characteristics of basic IO algorithms. Discretization and quantization problems.

Image processing(Computer Vision) are image transformations. The input data is an image, and the result of processing is also an image. Examples of image processing are: contrast enhancement, sharpness, color correction, color reduction, smoothing, noise reduction, and so on. Space images, scanned images, radar, infrared images, etc. can be used as a material for processing. processing task images can be either an improvement depending on a certain criterion (restoration, restoration), or a special transformation that radically changes the images. In the latter case, image processing can be an intermediate step for further image recognition. For example, before recognition, it is often necessary to select contours, create a binary image, and separate by colors.

Image processing methods can differ significantly depending on how the image is obtained - synthesized by the KG system or is it the result of digitizing a black and white or color photograph.

Sampling.

Drop-down list Sub Sampling (Discretization) sets the number of pixels of a homogeneous area. At the default value of 1:1, all pixels are tinted. A value of 8:1 sets the tinting of every eighth pixel. Increasing the resolution is often used when experimenting with different lights and materials to preview rendering results, because the higher the resolution, the faster the rendering time. If you are satisfied with the result, you can set it back to 1:1 for the best image quality.

Quantization.

This section sets the precision with which each pixel is calculated. The quantization rate (sample rate) determines how many quants (ie areas of the same color) are calculated for each pixel. For example, if the quantization rate is ¼, then one quant is calculated for every four pixels. If the quantization rate is greater than one, more than one quantum is computed for each pixel. The lower the minimum quantization rate, the faster the rendering will be, but the less accurate the result will be. The maximum quantization rate is applied when adjacent pixels lack contrast. The Contrast color parameter is used to determine the current quantization rates, taking into account the minimum and maximum rates.

7) Gamma characteristic. Gamma Correction Problem

Input hardware block diagram

The logarithmic transformation introduced in the block diagram is a great simplification. But, despite the shortcomings, this model is useful and implemented in the form of a gamma characteristic.

The term "Gamma" in CG and OI systems refers to the non-linear response of the monitor's cathode ray tube (CRT). A CRT does not produce a light intensity equal to the input voltage, but rather a non-linear relationship called the γ-characteristic. Gamma regulates the electrostatic charges in electron guns, not the luminosity of the phosphor. Gamma value for most CRTs is approximately 2.0-2.5

Gamma characteristic - the characteristic of the transmission of levels (brightness) - the dependence of the brightness levels of a television image on the brightness levels of an object.

Luminance information in analog form in television and digitally in most common graphic formats is stored on a non-linear scale. The brightness of a pixel on a monitor screen can be considered proportional to the first approximation:

I~Vγ

I - the brightness of the pixel on the display screen (or the brightness of the components a: red, green, blue separately),

V is the numerical value of the color, γ is the gamma correction index.

Graph of γ-characteristic

Bottom line - monitor gamma, top line - file gamma, straight line - image gamma

Gamma Correction

Historically, this is due to the fact that in a cathode ray tube, the relationship between the number of emitted photons and the voltage at the cathode is close to an exponential relationship. For LCD monitors, projectors, etc., where the relationship between voltage and brightness is more complex, special compensation circuits are used.

Device calibration.

Gamma Correction - The formula for correcting gamma is: y=1 , Where is the gamma of the monitor.

Gamma correction is necessary for more accurate reproduction of intensities by the monitor. Not all computer monitors have a gamma of exactly 2.5; some may be 2.2 while others may be closer to 2.7. In addition, red, green and blue electron guns can have individual voltage/brightness values.

The figure shows the gamma values ​​corrected by the system

monitor calibration. The gamuts of Red, Green, and Blue are different.

When transferring an image file between computers, the copy of the image may appear lighter or darker than the original. Different operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and Macintosh) have different standards for built-in gamma correction.

For example, the gamma correction built into the PNG format works as follows: data about the settings of the display, video card and software (gamma information) is saved in the file along with the image itself, which ensures that the copy is identical to the original when transferred to another computer.

Color is one of the fundamental features on which design is based. In the hands of a professional, it can be a powerful tool. It affects many factors that play a big role in visual perception. Color has a huge impact on our consciousness, it changes our attitude to any subject literally in seconds, and also makes people react to it and even take certain actions.

At first glance, the doctrine of color may not seem so difficult to master, but if you delve into the details, it becomes clear that many subtleties must be taken into account. The article “Color Theory: A Brief Guide for Designers” touches upon the basics of this doctrine, which help the designer in his work. And in this article, we've collected all the basic terms of color theory into a handy glossary that will help graphic and UI designers better understand how color works.

Color

Before we go any further, it is important to understand the very essence of color. It is defined in Webster's Dictionary as a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or grey) or a phenomenon of visual perception that enables a person to distinguish between objects that would otherwise appear the same. Simply put, color is the attribute of an object that results from the light emitted or reflected by that object. A color can be visually "checked" by evaluating its properties (hue, saturation, chroma, and brightness). To fully understand the meaning of color, let's define its characteristics.

color properties

The main properties of color are hue, brightness, chroma, and saturation.

Tone (hue)

The term "tone" is often confused with "color", so we will have to dwell on these definitions in more detail. First, you need to understand that “color” is a generalized concept that people use to refer to all tones, semitones and keys. On the other hand, tone is exactly what we mean when we ask “what color is this thing?”. In general, tone is a collection of twelve pure and bright colors represented on the color wheel.

Tone is a base material that can be modified in three different ways: fade, shade, and tone. Depending on the technique used, the tone turns into a shade, shade or tonality.

It's easy to tell them apart. A hue is created by mixing a tone with white, while a shadow is a mixture of a tone with black. Tone is a more subtle process as it requires the addition of both black and white and therefore the result will look more natural compared to midtones and tints.

Brightness (Value)

As already mentioned, flowers have certain characteristics by which they can be recognized. Lightness is a property that indicates how light/dark a color is. This feature is determined by the degree of whiteness. The more white was added to the tone, the higher its brightness.

Chromaticity

Chrome, or chromaticity, shows the purity of tone. This feature is evaluated based on the presence of white, gray or black in a color. The twelve basic tones described below have the highest degree of chromaticity, since they do not contain any additional elements. High chrome colors are bright and vibrant.

Saturation

This sign has a lot in common with brightness and chrome, so they can sometimes be confused. It is very important to understand the difference here. Unlike the previous two properties, saturation does not involve mixing tones with other colors. Saturation is how a color looks under different lighting conditions, how bright or pale a color appears in daylight or low light. This property is also called color intensity.

Color circle

If you've ever taken a painting class, you've definitely seen a circle made up of different colors. It is called the color wheel and helps you understand how colors are related to each other and how best to combine them. The color wheel is made up of primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, which are also known as tones.

The color wheel was invented by Isaac Newton in 1666 and at first looked like a scheme. Since then, it has undergone many transformations, but still remains the main tool for working with color compatibility. By design, the color wheel should work in such a way that it is easier for you to correctly mix colors.

Color types

By type, color is divided into primary, secondary and tertiary; as well as cold, warm and neutral.

Primary colors (Primary)

They are three pigment colors that cannot be created by mixing other colors. They are the basis of the entire color system. Primary colors vary depending on the type of color system. The CMYK subtractive color model is based on cyan, violet and yellow, while the RGB additive color model is based on red, green and blue. And the historical color model of RYB artists includes red, yellow and blue.

Secondary colors (Secondary)

These colors are created by mixing two primary colors. Since each system has its own primary colors, the secondary colors also vary. Below is a schematic explanation of what secondary colors can be formed in each of the models.

green + red = yellow

red + blue = purple

blue + green = cyan

yellow + purple = red

purple + cyan = blue

blue + yellow = green

yellow + red = orange

red + blue = purple

blue + yellow = green

Tertiary Colors

As a result of mixing primary and secondary colors, tertiary colors are obtained, which usually have compound names, for example, red-lilac or yellow-orange.

Cool, warm and neutral colors

All the colors described above can also be divided into three types: cold, warm and neutral.

Cool colors are in the blue-green part of the color wheel. They are called cold because they create a feeling of coolness. Warm colors are their opposite due to their associations with warmth. Yellow, orange and red are warm colors. Last but not least, neutral colors are not part of the color wheel. Among them are gray, brown and beige.

Weather forecast app (Tubik)

Color models

There are several color models: RGB, RYB, CMY, CMYK.

RGB

The primary colors of the RGB model are red, blue, and green. This model is the basis for all colors used on the screen. The combination of the primary colors of this model in equal proportions results in the secondary colors - cyan, violet and yellow, but it must be remembered that the more light you add, the brighter and lighter the color becomes. The results obtained after mixing additive colors are often unexpected for people used to the subtractive color model of paints, dyes, inks and other tangible objects.

RYB and CMY

RYB (R - Red, Y - Yellow, B - Blue) is another color model that is often used in art education, especially in painting. It provided the basis for the modern scientific theory of color, which established that cyan, violet and yellow are the most successful tricolor combinations for mixing. Thus, the CMY color model was born.

CMYK

The CMY model was modified with the advent of photomechanical printing. Black ink became its key component, and the model was renamed CMYK (C - cyan, M - violet, Y - yellow, K - black). Without this extra pigment, the shade closest to black would be a muddy brown. At the moment, this color model is most often used in printing.

Color Palettes

In design, color balance is of great importance, as the first impression of a site or application is formed by users at first sight, and colors have a strong influence on this. Designers have identified the main and most effective color palettes, or color harmonies.

monochrome

It is based on one color and its various tones and shades. A monochrome palette is always a win-win, as you have to try hard to make mistakes and make everything tasteless.

analog

To create an analog palette, colors are used that are next to each other on the color wheel. This kind of color palette is used where contrast is not needed, including against the background of web pages or banners.

Complementary

A complementary palette is a mixture of colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. This scheme is the opposite of similar and monochrome, as its purpose is to create contrast. For example, in any interface it will be difficult not to see an orange button on a blue background.

Separate-complementary

This palette works similarly to the previous one, but uses more colors. For example, when choosing a blue color, you must also add two adjacent shades of its opposite color, that is, yellow and orange. Here the contrast will not be as sharp compared to the complementary scheme, but more colors can be used.

Triadic

When a design needs more color, a triadic scheme can be used. It is based on three separate colors equidistant from each other. To maintain balance in the scheme, it is recommended to use one color as the dominant one, and the other two as accents.

Quaternary/Dual Complementary

The quaternary color scheme is meant to be used by experienced designers as it is the hardest to achieve balance. It uses four colors from the circle, which make up complementary pairs. If you connect the dots on the selected colors, they form a rectangle. In this scheme, it is quite difficult to achieve harmony, but if everything is done correctly, the results will be amazing.

I'd like to end with a prosaic quote from Ru Paul: "The whole point of living life and being is to use all the colors in the box of pencils." Learn how to use colors effectively both in life and in work, and you will like the results.

INTRODUCTION

Hi all. My name is Sasha Stowers (or just sashas) and this tutorial is all about color and how to use it effectively in your art. I'll touch on color theory a bit, but most of the lesson I'll be talking about using color to create an attractive composition, how color is perceived, and how it's made. I will also touch on some common "mistakes" that can lead to poor color matching. I must warn you right away, the lesson is not short. But (hopefully) full of useful information for you.

WHAT IS COLOR?

Color is perception. When light hits our eyes, special light receptors collect all the information about this light and record all the data about whether it is bright or subdued, whether it has a hue (red, blue, yellow, green, etc.). After collecting all this data, the eye sends a signal to our brain. The brain reads all the information sent and tells us "The apple is red."

Thus, in order to perceive color, we need to:
1. our eyes were sensitive to light and collected information about it
2. our brain processed the information we receive from the eyes.
Particular attention should be paid to the second point. Our brain does a lot of work; it makes up for different light situations, letting us know that the apple is red, even if it is lit with blue light; it allows us to determine the shape of an apple, the distance between objects, and more. In this lesson, we will understand how our brain works to understand color, and how this can be used for our artistic purposes.

WIDE EYES

STICKS AND CONES

Our eyes have two types of light receptors - rods and cones. Sticks are good in low light. They recognize movement well and are located more on the periphery, forming our peripheral vision. Cones are responsible for color perception. There are three types of cones: L (long wavelength light), M (medium wavelength light), S (short wavelength light). They are responsible for the perception of red, green and blue colors by our eyes.*

*This is not quite the right term, because these cones provide much more than just the perception of red, green and blue colors.

So how, with just three receptors, can we recognize so many different colors? In fact, these cones do not work alone (unless you are colorblind due to having only one type of cone), they all work together to collect all the color information. Each cone receptor can recognize up to 100 color gradations. If you collect information from all three cones, it turns out that the human eye recognizes about 1,000,000 colors.

COLOR QUALITY

So we have a whole 1,000,000 colors to play with. That's quite a lot. And it would be nice to somehow sort this pile of information. Fortunately, there is such a way. Somehow, scientists and artists got together and began to think about how to separate the colors so that they could be given a clear description. And so, the colors were divided by tone, purity and saturation.

TONES LIKE BLUE

The first quality of color is tone. Hue refers to the name most associated with a color, such as yellow, yellow-green, blue, and so on. – and sets the position of colors on the visible light spectrum. This is what people think about when they talk about color. Below are a few swatches (swatches) of colors. On the HSB scale (Hue / Tone, Saturation / Saturation, Brightness / Lightness), colors differ only in Hue.

CLEAR AS TURQUOISE

The second quality of a color is its purity. This definition has other names such as intensity and chromaticity. Purity expresses the amount of saturation or dullness of a color compared to a neutral (white, black, or grey) color. A high purity color will be far from neutral, while a low frequency color will be much closer to a neutral color. Below you will see a scale where you can see how the purity of the color decreases as white is added.

Don't confuse color purity with saturation. A dark color can still be pure and far from grey.

If you want to reduce the purity of a color, you can do so by diluting it with black, white, or gray. You can also use complementary (complementary) colors for this purpose if you are painting with paints, because. Complementary colors sort of make gray, but the result is usually a more saturated color than if you just added a neutral gray or brown.

BRIGHT AS WHITE

The third quality of color is chiaroscuro, sometimes called brightness. Chiaroscuro is the lightness or darkness of a color. It is measured by how color reflects light on a scale from white to black.

Don't ignore chiaroscuro just because it's not as effective as other color qualities. Among mammals, it is rare to find individuals with color vision, but, nevertheless, all of them can contemplate the world in black and white. Why? Because saturation can give us as much information about a color as neither hue nor chroma can.

The figure above shows examples of what we would see if we separate the three color properties.** With tone and clarity, the object is almost impossible to recognize. It's just something that looks like a human figure. With chiaroscuro, we can make out such details of the picture that were not visible in any other case. We can already say exactly what is shown in the picture, we can recognize the scarf and the direction of the light - in general, we can clearly understand what we are looking at.

** It is impossible, of course, to divide these properties by 100%. In order to convey the tone and purity of the color, you definitely need to vary the saturation, just as it is impossible to get a pure color without the intervention of the tone.

ADVICE: if you're using Photoshop, you can put a black and white adjustment layer on your drawing that you can turn on and off to control the composition.

PREPARING PENCILS

THEORY

Now that we understand what color is and how to describe it, we can try to organize it for our convenience. Color theory is a way of organizing color in such a way that it is convenient for us to mix colors and create new color combinations in order to achieve a favorable composition. I will go over the most basic principles of color theory, as well as tell you how to use them.

WHEEL

Chances are you're already familiar with the color wheel. If not, then the definition of it is as follows: the color wheel is simply the colors of the visible light spectrum, grouped in a certain order (from red to purple) in a circle. Isaac Newton, founder of the many principles of light and color, was the first to organize colors in this order. Such an organization of colors helps to find, for example, complements (or complementary colors) (these are opposite tones), as well as other color combinations.

Alternative color wheel in CYM. The wheel (pictured above) in RGB colors is considered traditional.

PRIMARY COLORS

The first thing we need to do is familiarize ourselves with some key color wheel terms. The very first and most important thing we need to remember is our primary colors. There are three primary colors: red, yellow and blue.*** They are called primaries because they cannot be formed by mixing other colors, but you can form most other colors by mixing these three.

***Purple, yellow, and teal (see above) are considered by some to be primary colors, but "true" versions of these colors in paint are extremely difficult to find. In any case, using only these three colors, you can create so many new colors that you don't even need to buy new paints.

SECONDARY COLORS

Secondary colors are those colors that result from mixing primary colors. Yellow and blue make green. Blue and red make purple, and mixing red with yellow makes orange. If you suddenly forget about it, you can just look at the color wheel. The result of mixing two colors will be located directly between them.

TERTIARY COLORS

Tertiary colors are located on the color wheel between primary and secondary colors (often shades of brown and gray are attributed to tertiary colors, despite the fact that they are not on the traditional color wheel). The names of these colors are usually written with a hyphen (yellow-green, blue-green, red-violet). Some define tertiary colors as a combination of primary and secondary colors, but I prefer to say that they are the result of an uneven addition of primary colors. This way you won't get the feeling that you can only add green to get yellow-green.

SHADES

You may notice that even with this color organization, we lose sight of many other colors. The main thing in primary, secondary and tertiary colors is hue, not purity or saturation. To create a lighter, darker, or less saturated color, we need to create lighter tones, tones, and darker tones (you can also add a complementary color to neutralize another color, but we can't call it a tone because we didn't use a neutral color) . Light shades (tints) appear as a result of adding white. Tones are the result of adding gray. And dark shades (shades) are obtained by adding black. Note that even when you add neutral tones, you may get changes in color. White shades shift the color more towards a blue tone. Black - to green (try with yellow). When you add a neutral color to any other color, you will get a decrease in color purity.

A COLOR SCHEME

Color wheels aren't just pretty wheels to help you mix colors. We can use color wheels to create color schemes and find colors that harmonize with each other.

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS

Complementary (or complementary) colors are those that are opposite each other on the color wheel. They are called complementary because they COMPLETE each other. Such colors increase their intensity and purity, because it is simply impossible to find a more distant tone. This is the same as putting black next to white on the cut-off scale.

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY COLORS

Split complementary colors are almost the same as complementary. The only difference between them is that you take shades that are adjacent (neighboring), and not just opposite. For example, instead of creating a color scheme of orange and blue, you'll use orange, blue-violet, and blue-green. Instead of two shades drawing attention to each other, we get a combination of two shades that work to enhance the effect of the opposite shade on the wheel.

RECTANGLE RULE

The rectangle rule selects complementary colors on both sides of the color wheel. Notice how we end up with two sets of complementary colors (red with green and yellow with purple). The main advantage of this approach is a wide range of colors. Instead of two or three colors, you have four at your disposal.

ANALOG COLORS

The analog color scheme is the exact opposite of the complementary color scheme. Instead of colors that contrast dramatically in tone, in the analog circuit we get similar hues located next to each other on the color wheel. Most often, analog colors are considered the most harmonious.

WARM AND COOL COLORS

The color wheel can be divided into two equal parts: warm colors and cool colors. Cold colors are mentally and emotionally associated with cold (shades of blue, green and purple). Warm colors are reminiscent of warmth (yellow, orange, red). Although, the mental and emotional associations associated with these colors are slightly different from the point of view based on physics. Red, for example, is the color of the coldest stars in the universe, while blue/violet is one of the hottest. It is also worth noting that purple and green can be both cold and warm colors, so the division of the wheel can be done in different ways.
Yellow is considered the warmest color (because it reflects the most light), so adding this color to any other color makes it warmer. Blue, on the other hand, is considered the coldest, so diluting some color with blue will make it colder.

MONOCHROME COLORS

Monochrome color schemes use only one tone. Many people think that this combination of colors is too boring, but this is not at all the case. Despite the limited variability of tone, this does not mean at all that the purity and lightness / darkness of the color will be limited.

TRIAD (TRIANGLE RULE)

As the name implies, this scheme includes colors chosen according to the rule of a triangle (equilateral, to be precise). Thus, the wheel is divided into three equal parts with an extensive choice of colors. Note that our primary colors are part of this triad.

TETRAD (SQUARE RULE)

According to the tetrad rule, an equilateral square is formed inside our color wheel. This color scheme is considered harmonious because it includes two cold and two warm tones that complement each other perfectly. Although these colors are a combination of complementary colors (in this case, red with green and yellow-orange with blue-violet), they are more common than split complementary colors and offer the opportunity to reduce tone contrast.

OTHER THEORIES

Like so much in art, the color wheel classification system is not the only method. Although the color wheel is suitable for defining color combinations, it does not capture the other two aspects of color - purity and saturation (lightness/darkness). Consider another popular color organization system - the Munsell system. Unlike the color wheel, the Munsell system is three-dimensional. On one axis we have purity/chroma, on the second axis we have saturation (lightness/darkness), and on the third axis we have tonality.

Notice the "gaps" in this 3D model of the Munsell system, which is based on the perception of tone, chroma, and saturation. Some colors, such as yellow, naturally appear much brighter than others; some colors always look darker than others, and it is because of this difference in perception that these "gaps" appear.

In contrast to the three primary colors identified on the traditional color wheel, Munsell divides hue into five principal colors—red, yellow, green, blue, and purple—but, as on the traditional color wheel, complementary colors are placed opposite each other.

LIMITED EDITION

If you are an artist (in any craft), you have probably noticed that there are colors that are very difficult to reproduce. And it doesn't matter if you're using paint, computer screens, or printouts, your colors just don't pull. Most often this is due to the fact that your color gamut is limited. Gamma is the full range of possible colors in a particular medium, whether it be a computer, or a set of inks, or a cartridge in a printer.

The computer screen works by optically mixing Red, Green and Blue (RGB) colors. The printer mixes Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK). When it comes to colors, Red, Yellow and Blue colors are mixed. But, despite the fact that when mixing these paints, we get a wide range of new colors as a result, the range still remains limited.

Look at the picture below. Gray highlights the range of colors visible to the human eye. The letters A, B, and C represent the colors that a CRT monitor can display: red, green, and blue. These colors form a triangle. Why isn't the whole range of colors included here? When mixing two colors, we get a new color that will be located directly between them. We cannot mix blue with green and get a color more blue than the original blue, or a color greener than our green. Because we can only work with colors between A, B, and C, our monitor will never be able to produce a D color that is far outside this gamut.

EXTENDED EDITION

So how can you expand the gamut of colors if you draw with paints or print on a printer? Easily. Add new colors. When you limit yourself to red, yellow, and blue, you also limit the range of colors you can use. Sometimes you need sky blue or turquoise. Sometimes pink just doesn't work when you need purple. Don't be afraid to go beyond the primary colors.

Note: Today you can buy a printer with more than four standard colors (CMYK) of ink. If I'm not mistaken, my printer has six of them: blue, cyan, yellow, red, magenta, black and matte black. You can also use the colors of the Pantone system (Pantone) - these are specialized tones for printing.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

ONE MINUS ONE

Up to this point we have been talking about mixing colors by mixing pigments. When we mix pigment, dye or ink, we use a certain way of mixing colors - subtractive. This method is called so because our colors are created by absorbing (or subtracting) certain colors while reflecting others. If you shine white light on a red apple, the surface of that apple will absorb most of the rays, but will reflect long wavelengths of light around the red end of the spectrum to our eyes. This is why the apple turns red, and this is why traditional paints and pigments take on the colors they are.

ONE PLUS ONE

As you probably noticed, in the last definition we touched only on the ability to absorb and reflect light. And what about those things that are painted according to a different principle? I'm talking about objects that emit light. Mixing the colors of light is called additive mixing. This name comes from the fact that different light sources add colored light to produce color. Additive color mixing is used in light emitting devices.

The primary colors for additive color are red, blue, and green, which should remind you of something if you've read the section on how our eyes work. The secondary colors for this kind of color mixing are magenta, yellow and teal. To be honest, I've only touched the surface of additive color mixing since most light emitting fixtures that work on the RGB scale can convert color to CMYK or HSB, which work inside an additive mixing system.

OTHER DYING METHODS

So, we have defined the following methods of creating color - absorption / reflection and emission, but these methods are not the only ones. The following ways to create color are rare, so I will talk about them briefly:

DIFFUSION

When passing through a material, light tends to scatter. So our sky turns blue. With minimal scattering, it will turn blue. If you diffuse the light more, you can get deeper colors, such as red or orange. When the sun is directly overhead, it travels through less atmosphere than when it forms an acute angle, such as at sunset or dawn. If you want to test this theory in practice, try adding milk to a glass of water and shining a light on it.

IRISING (RAINBOW)

Sometimes when you look at an object, its colors begin to change (for example, on soap bubbles, peacock feathers, or the wings of some butterflies). This phenomenon is called irisation. This is due to the fact that thin translucent and transparent layers shift colors. The angle at which you look at the object changes your interaction with the layers, so the colors change as well.

FLUORESCENCE (GLOW)

This effect occurs when an object absorbs different wavelengths of light and emits different wavelengths of light. You can shine with ultraviolet light (which is not visible to the human eye), but the result will be green. In effect, the object is translating the light into a different frequency than the one you started with. A good example is uranium glass.

END OF PART ONE

So you've made it through the most boring part of the tutorial. I didn't really mean to go into color theory that much, but you should get the basics down first before moving on to the other points about color. In the next part, I will touch on the topic of color perception itself.

A bit of history: In 1666, during the great plague, when Cambridge University was closed, I. Newton had to do scientific experiments at home, in particular, these were experiments on the study of the nature of light. Having eclipsed the window and left a small hole in it, Newton placed a glass prism in front of the sunbeam penetrating through this hole. The white beam of light, passing through the prism, turned into a succession of colors, which were displayed on a screen located behind the prism.

So, thanks to the evil irony of fate - the great plague of the 17th century, which made it possible for Newton to digress from pressing university affairs and deal with the problem of color that had long been of interest to him, humanity approached the scientific definition of the nature of color. Namely, it approached, since this stunningly beautiful natural phenomenon caused numerous disputes among scientists over the following centuries and still brings new and new mysteries.

1. Color theory

Color is a physical phenomenon that is formed by the refraction of light.
Light in the form of ordinary daylight is perceived by our eyes as "white" i.e. colorless light. In fact, it actually consists of a number of colors: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

No doubt you have at least once seen a rainbow after the rain, a multi-colored band of color encircling the sky. Why do we see so many colors in the rainbow? We know that sunlight is a combination of colored rays of light, and different colors refract in different ways. In other words, the light is split, i.e. diffraction occurs.

To perceive color, 3 conditions are necessary:

1. Light source
2. Reflective surface
3. Human eye

Colors are divided into:

1. Chromatic - all colors of the rainbow
2. Achromatic - white and black

Different colors are created by light waves, which are a certain kind of electromagnetic energy.

The human eye can only perceive light at wavelengths between 400 and 700 millimicrons.
1 micron or 1mk = 1/1000mm = 1/1000000m
1 millimicron or 1mm = 1/1000000mm
The wavelength corresponding to the individual colors of the spectrum, the corresponding frequencies (number of oscillations per second) for each spectral color have the following characteristics:

Color Wavelength in N/m Vibration purity per second

RED 800 - 650 400 - 470 billion
ORANGE 640 - 510 470 - 520 billion
YELLOW 580 - 550 520 - 590 billion
GREEN 530 - 490 590 - 650 billion
BLUE 480 - 460 650 - 700 billion
BLUE 450 - 440 700 - 760 billion
VIOLET 430 - 390 760 - 800 billion

Light waves themselves have no color. Color arises only when these waves are perceived by the human eye and brain. The color of objects arises mainly in the process of absorption of waves. A red vessel looks red because it absorbs all other colors of the light spectrum except red.

White - reflection color. The object is perceived as white because it reflects all the colors of the rainbow. Black- absorption color. The object is perceived as black because it absorbs all the colors of the rainbow.

Objects of any color other than black and white reflect all the colors of the spectrum and reflect all the colors of the spectrum and absorb only the complementary color to the color that the object takes on.

EXAMPLE: A green object illuminated by daylight will reflect all light components and absorb rays of red light, which is the complementary color of green.
Therefore, we can say that since color is a reflection, a light source is needed to produce it. If there is no light, then there is no color, in the dark all colors are black.

At the heart of all chromatic colors existing in the world are only 3 basic colors: RED, BLUE, YELLOW, and only the correct mixing proportions and concentration of coloring substances are decisive when a particular shade appears. If the colors “located nearby” are mixed, then a color of a completely different nature appears. Yellow and red make orange, blue and red make purple, while blue and yellow make green.

Chromatic colors are divided into primary and derived colors.

Primary colors - red, blue and yellow are the basis of all chromatic colors and in fact without them there is no color. Primary colors are the main components of hair dyes.

Derived colors are divided into secondary, tertiary, etc. Secondary colors are obtained by mixing two primary (primary) colors.
Red + yellow = orange
Red + blue = purple
Blue + yellow = green

Tertiary colors - adding a secondary color to one of the two primary colors that form it, we get new colors, which we will call tertiary.

FOR EXAMPLE: purple + red = mahogany (mahogany)
Purple + blue = pearl

Different proportions of the mixture of primary and secondary colors form an uncountable number of intermediate shades.

The nature of the color is warm or cold colors. Warm colors: yellow and red; cold blue. If yellow or red colors predominate in a color, then this color is warm, if blue predominates, a cold color.

Color neutralization- An important feature of chromatic colors is the ability to mutually neutralize (complement). For each chromatic color (except brown) there is an additional color that, when combined with the original color, gives gray, taupe.

Violet neutralizes Yellow
Red neutralizes Green
Blue neutralizes Orange

First impression is everything. The proverb “Meet by clothes, see off by mind” is relevant not only in life, but also in design. A design impression is made up of many factors, and one of the most important is color.

Understanding which colors go well with each other is not always easy, this article covers the basics of color theory, which will come in handy when choosing a color scheme for website design. Let's start with the simplest.

Primary Colors

The main colors of the palette are red, yellow and blue. If we talk about the primary colors on the screens of various devices, these are RGB, red, green and blue.

Secondary Colors

If you evenly mix red and yellow, yellow and blue, blue and red, respectively, the secondary colors will be orange, green and purple. Combining these colors in a project can give a design a contrast.

Tertiary Colors

The tertiary color is obtained by mixing the primary and secondary. For example, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green, red-orange, yellow-orange.

We figured out the basics of the "wheel of colors". With it, it is easy to select well-matched colors for design. Let's move on to more complex combinations.

Complementary Colors

As you can see from the diagram, the complementary colors are opposite each other on the wheel. Gives more contrast to the design, but should be used with care, otherwise it will be a “pull-out-the-eye-design”

Analogous Colors

They are located side by side on the flower wheel. Neighboring colors create a sense of diversity, such as blue-green or yellow-orange.

Triads

By using triads on the color wheel, you can achieve enough variety, but at the same time a good balance.

Split Complementary Colors

Square scheme (Square Colors)

This scheme works well with one enhanced color and three muted ones.

Rectangular scheme (Tetradic Colors)

It looks like the previous scheme, or rather just its variation.

Using light and shadow (Tints and Shades)

Gives the design volume and color variety.

Warm and Cool Colors

Cool and warm colors are classic color schemes in their own right. Their main difference is in human perception. Warm colors evoke summer associations: warmth, sun, green landscapes, and cold colors are associated with winter: cold, snow, cloudy weather.

Understanding color theory and putting it into practice is one of the most important skills of a good designer. The right combination of colors on the site improves the overall perception of the design and can evoke different emotions.

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