How Color Is Received

The human eye is capable of seeing millions of colors. The light beams that fall to Earth from the Sun carry all the visible (and invisible) rays of the electromagnetic spectrum that the human eye is able to perceive. Each individual color of light has its own vibrational frequency (wavelength).  And each of these colors is perceived differently from the others not only by our eyes but by our minds and our bodies. Our bodies however are affected by far more frequencies of light then just those we are able to see. For example ultra-violet rays, which, while invisible to the naked eye are capable of tanning our skin, x-rays take photos of the inside of our bodies, and infra-red reveals heat signatures and is used to treat skin ailments.

The colors in the spectrum that are seen by our eyes are the three primary colors of visible light waves – red, green and blue - and additionally the infinite number of colors that can be created from these three main colors. You may remember a different set of primary colors from your grade school lessons. This is because the primary colors for light and the primary colors for pigment differ. The system of light is known as the additive system, the system of pigment is known as subtractive.

The idea that the world itself and the objects around us have color can be thought of simplistically, as an illusion. Consider in fact that an apple is not necessarily red but rather it appears red to our eyes because while it is absorbing all the other colors in the spectrum the one color it is not absorbing, but is instead reflecting back to our eyes, is red. So in fact the very color it rejects is the one we perceive it to be. How ironic!

Two Systems - Two Ways of Seeing

Because light is the purest form of color energy it combines differently then pigment. Pigments are finely ground compounds (usually minerals and plants of the desired shade) in a base medium. Each substance in the pigment deteriorates the purity of the color frequency and acts to inhibit it. Because of the difference in the systems their three primaries are dissimilar and each system behaves differently. But you will see in fact the differences are also what they have in common as the two systems are in fact complementary and you could even say – two sides of the same coin.

Light/Additive System

The three primary colors in the Light/Additive system are Red, Green, and Blue. This system of light is how authentic color light energy behaves. It is how the colors in your computer screen and on your TV work. It is the system of scientists, theatre technicians and healers. Computer technicians and computer graphics artists use the initials of RGB to refer to this system and its primary colors of Red, Green and Blue. In the Light/Additive system, the two primaries of Red and Green combine to make the secondary color of yellow. Red and Blue combine to make a secondary Magenta, and Green and Blue combine to create the secondary of Cyan. All three of the primaries of this system – Red, Green and Blue when combined create pure White Light. Hence color energy is referred to as the Light system.

Dark/Subtractive System

The three primary colors in the Dark/Subtractive system are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. You might remember learning these three primary colors in grade school as Blue, Red and Yellow. This is because in the 1800s the system was simplified for teaching purposes as the colors Cyan and Magenta are very vibrant, bordering on fluorescent, and there were no adequate pigments to represent them at the time. Apparently it was thought that the best solution was to move down a notch to the less vibrant Blue and Red and teach the color wheel with those shades instead. So forget what you learned prior – for the purposes of this article we will be referring to the three primary colors of pigments as Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. Pigment is what you see printed in magazines and in the paints on your walls. It is the system of printers and artists. In fact in the printing industry they use the initials CMYK to stand for four color process printing, the technique that creates full color printed images. K is used to represent Black so that it is not mistaken for Blue or Brown.

In the Dark/Subtractive system, the two primaries of Cyan and Magenta combine to create the secondary color Blue. Magenta and Yellow create the secondary of Red, and Yellow and Cyan combine to create secondary Green. All three of the primaries in this system – Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, combine to create Black. Hence pigment color is referred to as the Dark system.

Symmetry

So we have come full circle. The primary colors of the Pigment system combine to create a set of secondary colors that are in fact the Primary colors of the Light System. And conversely (stay with me here) the Primary colors of the Light system combine to create secondary colors that are in fact the primary colors of the pigment system. Confused? Perhaps an illustration will help.