Thursday, August 20, 2009

Don't Forget the Fovea

BEWARE.

Discussion surrounding this question became quite heated around here recently.


Q: What are the three primary colors?


a) red, green, and blue


b) red, yellow, and blue


32 comments:

DougALug said...

Red / Blue / Yellow.

;)

Doug

Diabolical Genius said...

Uh oh. The line has been drawn, and the saber rattlin' has begun.

Milly said...

Primary- red, yellow, blue

Subtractive primaries- magenta, yellow, cyan

additive primaries-red, green, blue

Diabolical Genius said...

Milly,

You got some 'splainin' to do!

Kevin Knox said...

Wow. I was made to learn something out here.

I think it hurt.

(Thanks for confusing me into research, Milly. :-) )

Milly said...

Ummm so you don't know color?

Oh that's right you're a dude. I've had to explain why true white paint is important to men by looking that the wives. If you've ever planned a wedding you know that answer.

What do you want explained

Anonymous said...

Green cannot be primary because it is made up of blue and yellow. Just sayin'.

WandaV

DougALug said...

Wanda,

Green can be a primary, because it is a function of white being the base color or black... an emitter or a collector.

A Monitor is a perfect example of it. It's three colored pixels are red green and blue.

God Bless
-Doug

Milly said...

So the Monitor is is red, blue, and yellow

Green is a additive primary

Milly said...

Kevin,
I'm always glad to teach you stuff. I know about how you love to learn.

DougALug said...

Milly,

No a monitor is Red Green Blue (Hence the name RGB Monitor). This is because if you look at the light spectrum (not a wheel, but a line) it goes from Red to Green to Blue, where they are even increments from each other. Yellow is actually between red and green which I will try to explain below.

Pictures that are TIFF's, JPG's, and BMP's are also using the RGB. Though some will convert the the CMY system: which is Cyan Magenta Yellow (A subtractive method).

The additive color system involves light emitted directly from a source, before an object reflects the light. The additive reproduction process mixes various amounts of red, green and blue light to produce other colors.

Combining one of these additive primary colors with another produces the additive secondary colors cyan, magenta, yellow. Combining all three primary colors produces white.

Television and computer monitors create color using the primary colors of light. Each pixel on a monitor screen starts out as black. When the red, green and blue pixels are lit simultaneously, the result is white. This phenomenon is called additive color.

Imagine if you had three spotlights: one red, one green and one blue focused on one place on a stage. On the overlaps: here is what comes out:

Red+Blue = Magenta
Green+Red = Yellow
Green+Blue = Cyan

Where all three overlap is where you get white.

This defines an additive color system.

By contrast, in a subtractive color system (CMY), the combination of the three primaries (In this case Cyan, Magenta, Yellow), renders black.

I hope this makes sense.

-Doug

Rich said...

In case anyone just heard something like dynamite blasting just a minute ago when I was moderating the last comment, that was my head exploding.

Let me sort this out and see if I have it straight. There's black and white, and there's shades of gray. Everything else is outside of Pleasantville.

Diabolical Genius said...

You were warned!!

Rich said...

You were warned!!

I was warned about discussing, which I stayed away from, you'll notice -- not that in the event I moderate and publish a comment that it would involve meta-quantum spectrum physics enough to blow up my brain.

Not that. Or else you're warning was a tad lacking.

Diabolical Genius said...

I put it in all CAPS. The rest was implied.

DougALug said...

Rich,

Actually you are correct. There is black, white, and gray... these are intensities. When 'mixed' with color, we get the full spectrum.

As far as the explosion sound, I think you were really thinking about making out or something.

God Bless
Doug

Rich said...

Buzzard,

Someone has to moderate the comments. It's just part of running a blog the way we do. There wasn't a SIGN at the Moderate Comments screen that said in all caps -- BEWARE OF DOUG'S NEXT COMMENT THAT CONTAINS WORDS, PHRASES, AND ACRONYMNS SUCH AS THE FOLLOWING: "REPRODUCTION MIXES", "PIXELS", "RGB", "EVEN INCREMENTS", "TIFFS", "THIS PHENOMENON", "ADDITIVE AND SUBTRACTIVE COLORS", "CMY", "LIGHTED EMITTED DIRECTLY FROM A SOURCE", "JPG'S", AND "BMPS", WHICH MAY CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR PREGNANT WOMEN, PERSONS WITH HEART PROBLEMS, OR BRAIN IMPLOSIONS FOR THOSE WITH LESSER MINDS.

It didn't say anything at all like that.

Laura Leigh said...

Boy, Am I glad I didn't jump in here earlier...My mom taught art at the Magnet Schools in Decatur, and she always told me black was not a color, it was void of color. Just thought I would through that out there....

Diabolical Genius said...

Maybe someone could explain the difference between transparent and translucent in light (HA, a pun) of Laura's question.

Also, watch out Rich. It's really going to blow your mind when I introduce another concept here in the comments, and you hear the big words Doug and Milly use. (Hint: I alluded to it in the title.)

Milly said...

Sorry Doug you missed my sarcastic tone.

With a practical application I’m correct in my first response on the primary colors. (grade school thinking)

I’m with the art department at my church. Ok so we only have a team of two. And I’m not doing much for the big project right now because of my sister’s illness and my lack of time. I did sort photos and tell my cohort to talk and work a lot. He tends to talk instead of working. I’m learning about pixels and stuff. I wish that I had more time to take classes.

Rich said...

Also, watch out Rich. It's really going to blow your mind when I introduce another concept here in the comments, and you hear the big words Doug and Milly use. (Hint: I alluded to it in the title.)

My mind is a cat, and I'm willing to blow all nine of it's lives here in this thread... riiiiiii-iiiiight,

No, I'm thinking it's about time I bow out before I hear more words like "magenta". Soon, "mauve", "toupe", "sage", "lavender", all those pastels get spilled out on this thread. I don't wanna be here when that happens. Pontificating on those colors will be as bad as Doug's "High Illuminary" speech. Well, maybe.

Anonymous said...

Okay. I'm going to insert something completely un-scientific here.

My favorite crayon in the crayola box is cornflower blue.

Alrighty then.

WandaV

Diabolical Genius said...

That's interesting. I thought I was the only one with a favorite Crayola color: Periwinkle.

Maybe it has something to do with the name, because green has always been my favorite color, and Periwinkle is a shade of blue.

Periwinkle always seemed very peaceful and calming though.

Milly said...

They make 120 colors.
How can I pick just one?
I would hate to make the other colors sad.

DougALug said...

Milly,

Eventually, you must pick one.

I like Navy Blue ;)

I thought Periwinkle was some character on Blue's Clue's

God Bless
-Doug

Milly said...

Fine I pick purple. I love the color purple.

Now I have to explain to all the other colors how I love them too.

Anonymous said...

Just purple? Aren't there several shades of purple in the box? Is there a special shade you like?

Ken, when asked for my fave color, I always reply 'green'. But cornflower blue is the color of the very-right-above-your-head-on-a-clear-crisp-autumn-day. I love that color!

WandaV

Diabolical Genius said...

My favorite color is green, too.

That is sooooo weird. What are the odds that we would both have green as our favorite color.

In honor of Wanda, I am changing the official color of the Realm to green until all our other regular commenters come here and pay proper homage to Wanda, me, and all other green lovers out there.

DougALug said...

Ken,

Envy of Rich is not actually green: it is more like a very dark black. Perhaps if you save up all of your money and stay home on the weekends, you might some day be as cool as me. But Rich is going to take some extra training and extra 'greasing'.

-Doug

Milly said...

I can’t choose one kind of purple because it depends on what I’m looking at. When I lived in the little house in the woods I loved the purple wild violets that grew in my special spot by the spring.

I love a purple sky

I love my purple shirt.

Van Gogh’s starry night has wonderful shades. I picked a color from the painting for a bathroom.
I can’t, NO I won’t choose just one shade because I love them all.

Green is ok my daughter likes it

Anonymous said...

The green website is loverly. Thank you.

WandaV

Milly said...

Make the green go away! WE need purple that can be seen.

My son is doing that fake cough thing saying red's the best color.

Sooner red