The Colour Theory notes Part 2

The world around us can be seen to be made from a tertiary colour palette, tertiary colours are the created when adding a smaller amount of one primary colour and a bigger amount of another.

With Spectral colour, Yellow doesn't actually exist, it is perceived by seeing two colours - red and green. Therefore yellow cannot be a primary colour in this instance, as it is made from two colours, meaning that the primary colours are Red, Green and Blue, these colours RGB being the main colour mode for digital screen.
CYMK is the colour mode for production processes, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black being the Key colour.

From these colour modes we get subtractive colours and additive colours.

RGB

CYMK 

We then have Chromatic values to how we perceive colour - this consists of Hue + Tone + Saturation. Chromatic values are considered to be the building blocks of how we depict colour.

Hue is a different shade or tint of a base colour, secondary or primary.
Tone is also known as Luminance:
- A shade of a colour is when we gradually add black to the hue and we gain different stages of colour from this. A gradual tonal value of the original hue.
- A Tint however is the exact opposite of  a Shade as we add white to the hue over time.

When you combine both shade and tint of a colour you get a tone. When we see a colour of an object we see the reflected light based on Luminance, we see that lighter colours reflect more light whilst darker colours absorb the light, perceiving to be dark.

Saturation is the vibrance of a colour whereas desaturation is when colour is removed from the original colour, becoming darker until it reaches a neutral grey and then turns to black.  For example if you were to change a violet hue to a blue, you would actually be desaturating the hue.

When we introduce another hue of the same colour we start to compare between the two and it changes our perception, meaning we cant actually trust what we are seeing. For instance, when we see a colour in context we cant be sure that that red is red. We define colour in comparison, the colour shifts in chromatic value not physically but psychologically.

Monochromatic - between black and white there are a range of inbetweens. We can use ittens wheel as a basis for his monochromatic range, we remove the colour.



Pantone is the best colour matching system we can obtain on screen, we get an exact colour tone, and is a way that we define colour. It is also helpful when sending digital work to print, as you can specifically request the exact pantone colour you want printed.

Example of a Pantone book

The first thing we see to determine colour is the contrast of tone and hue - is it light or is it dark? - these relate to the Rods and Cones of our eyes. 

• Contrast of a Hue - The greater the distance between hues the greater the contrast however it is not that simple. If we were to put red text on a blue background it would be hard to read, we would need to use ittens colour wheel as a basis. Interestingly the yellow is seen as the white of the colour wheel. This can be seen when we compare it against a back background.
• Contrast of Proportion - the visual weight of a colour - Making a colour 'standout' or 'fade' into the background.
• Contrast of Temperature - Hues that are considered to be warm and cool - we associate colours to be warm and cool even though we know that colours aren't actually hot or cold. A contrast of colour is a build up of hue and saturation. When we isolate the colours, red gradually fading into blue/blue to red the colours look matte however when we put the hues together we see a gradient form. This gradient does not exist but we still perceive this, and it is also perceived in print.
• Complimentary contrast - The highest contrast we know of is black and white, both colours fight for attention, we see a constant movement and it causes a slight vibration. This is due to how our eyes see colour, it sinks back and another is pushed forward as they both fight for attention. 
• Simultaneous contrast is formed when the boundaries between colour values. For example putting a more desaturated colour behind a less desaturated version of the same colour becomes more saturated.

The Colour Theory notes

How do we know that what we see, what we perceive with our eyes is colour? 

Colour is an entire spectrum that is the impact of how we perceive colour;  we see colour through, 

Physical - Physiological - Psychological 

We first have the physical colour, and we then see the colour with our eyes, which we then immediately categorise colours into temperature and moods or even to determine what material it is made from, we need to interpret.

Physical amounts of colour can be measured through wave length with in white light. White light is made from five colours, each colour has its' own wave length. Different light has different properties as it travels through space. It refracts as it hits our eye lens, this is when the physical properties of the colour take effect.

Our eyes have two receptors that receive the colour information;

Rods - This conveys shades of black, white and grey

Cones - This allows the brain to perceive colour and there are three types of cones,
Type 1 - is sensitive to red-orange colours 

Type 2 - sensitive to blue
Type 3 - sensitive to green

When a single cone is stimulated, the brain interprets colour. However if both the green and red cones are stimulated, our perception changes to 'yellow', this creates another interpretation. 

Through this interpretation our eyes can be 'fooled' as we can actually only see three main colours, it is the light that reflects from objects that feed us this information. This only works with in certain conditions, if you were to walk into a dark room, you couldn't see colour however just because you can't see it does not mean that it is not there, it is the light that tells us what colour it is. 

If we were to see colour with in a red light, compared to white light, it would effect the colour, but how can we actually tell what is the correct colour? We can only really base it on the white light that we perceive colour with everyday of our lives. 

Different people conceive colours differently to another, we are trained to perceive colour, we are not born with it.  If a person is colour blind, colour is immediately interpreted differently, depending on how much the person is affect, their view on the world is engulfed with shades of pink and grey.

The idea of colour itself cannot be determined 

Post renaissance interpreted that a level of science and art can be merged together.

Johannes Itten researched into colour by relation of ink and pigment in industrial printing. He created a basis of colour with in a wheel diagram.  In Ittens theory Colour is based on the physical mixing of Pigment, pior to screen based colour and an advancement in technology. 

There are three primary colours, Blue, Red and Yellow, these are called primary colours as we cannot make these colours by mixing the other colours together. From the primary colours we have secondary colours that are made from mixing two of the primary colours together, we get green, orange and purple. Interestingly the secondary colours become one of the primary colours complimentary colour, a colour which contrasts against the primary. We can find the complimentary colour of a primary colour by looking at the wheel. For instance if we look at the colour red, and look directly opposite, we see that blue and yellow make green, green being the red's complimentary colour.
We then have neutral greys which are created when mixing all of the primary colours together in certain amounts, you cancel the colours out.