Detached from The universe in 100 colors: Weird and Wonderful Colors from Science and Nature by Tyler Thrasher and Terry Mudge. 24 Sep 2024, Sasquatch Books. Published with permission.
Despite color being a ubiquitous aspect of our world, misconceptions about its nature and behavior are equally widespread. Some of these myths are detailed here.
MYTH: PRIMARY COLORS ARE RED, YELLOW AND BLUE
This is often taught in schools, art courses and paint mixing diagrams, but it is not quite accurate in all contexts. As for light, the true master of color, the primaries are instead red, green and blue. When it comes to color printing and photography, dyes and inks work through subtractive color mixing, which requires stacking or overlapping the color fields of another set of primary colors—magenta, cyan, and yellow—to partially absorb light. allowing only some of the visible spectrum to be observed.
MYTH: THE RAINBOW CONTAINS EVERY COLOR
A rainbow, or the spectrum of visible light, includes a beautiful array of colors, but it does not include all of the colors categorized and recognized by humans. Pink, brown and white, for example, are not found in the spectrum because they come from a mixture of wavelengths or from complex interactions within our eyes and brain.
Roses and magentas are perceived when red and blue wavelengths overlap. There are no overlapping colors in a rainbow, and even if there were, red and blue are on opposite sides of the visible spectrum. A lot of overlapping would have to happen before the blue and red would meet, and at that point it would be a very messy rainbow. This is the same reason you won’t find true purple in a rainbow. The purple color and bands we see are due to something called excess rings, which are extra faint bands surrounding a primary or even secondary rainbow. Their light interaction gives the illusion of violet, but does not change the fact that violet does not have its own distinct wavelength in the visible spectrum. Closest to violet in light is spectral violet, which has its own wavelength, while violet is a range of mixtures between different ratios of red and blue.
MYTH: BLACK AND WHITE ARE NOT COLORS
This often sparks debate. In terms of light, white is a mixture of all wavelengths of light that are perceived simultaneously, and true black is the absence of any light – no color, no visual information. When it comes to pigments, the whiter and paler a color is, the more light is reflected back to the viewer. The darker and blacker a color is, the more light is absorbed by the surface or medium. If any coated object is to have color, that color consists of the wavelengths that managed to escape the coating’s structure.
That doesn’t take into account the headache-inducing breadth of whites and blacks popularized by artists, interior designers and clothing companies (or anyone with a jersey and an Americano, frankly). If you don’t believe us, stand by the paint section of a hardware store and watch the next couple debating whether they want their white cabinets “warm” or “cool.”
Some of these differences are so small that the average observer may not notice them, but if you look closely and take the time for subtlety, you can find quite a difference between a bluish black, an infinite purple midnight or a dark slab. so flat and non-reflective that one could argue it’s just “black in an unlit room”.
MYTH: EVERYONE SEES COLORS THE SAME
Color perception can vary significantly between individuals due to factors such as color blindness, age and even cultural context. It is wrong to assume that everyone has the same visual experience, and it often takes a little comparison to tell that two people are not experiencing the same color/visual phenomenon.
It’s a classic shower thought: How can we prove we’re all seeing the same color? By comparing and contrasting the anatomy of the human eye and finding an average between different samples and how those eyes react to different lights and colors, we can safely say that there is an average color perception outside of color vision deficiencies ( CVD).
CVDs are described as any color vision that does not match standard trichromatic color vision and is the result of abnormally functioning cone cells in an individual. CVDs can be genetic or acquired through disease, injury, aging or chemical exposure.
The differences between CVDs can range from the improper functioning of only one of the three cone cells to the total visual absence of color, called achromatopsia. When a single cone is affected, the result can be a visual confusion between blue and green, yellow and gray, or blue and purple, to name a few.
MYTH: ANIMALS SEE BLACK AND WHITE
While it is true that some animals do not see the range of colors that humans see, it is not correct to say that they only see in black and white. Dogs, for example, see the world in shades of blue and yellow. Some animals, such as mantis shrimps and birds, can perceive a world of color that is completely invisible to humans. Bees and many other insects see wavelengths from 300 nm to 650 nm, which means they can perceive ultraviolet light.
This shift in perception means our bug friends are visually navigating our gardens in ways we can’t imagine. Flowers with UV-reactive patterns on their petals can act as lights on a runway for bees and can attract insects through strong contrast. Take a yellow dandelion for example. It is a solid, patternless yellow flower for humans, but a colorful and vibrant bread for life forms that not only rely on
plants but help further its existence.
MYTH: THE TERMS COLOR, COLOR, SHADOW AND SENSE ARE INTERCHANGEABLE
There are so many ways we can describe colors and the properties of color. It doesn’t help that there are entire professions that rely on accurately describing color and color concepts. The existence of these practices adds a complexity to the description of colors that can often be missed by the average person. We clarify the true meaning of each term here.
Hue it is the root color, the base upon which other components such as value and saturation are added. A shade is a pure color and pigment. For example, a calming shade isn’t a hue, but a shade of brown would belong in the cyan family—in other words, very blue. Starting with cyan, additional values come into play to create brown, such as desaturation, light, and shadow. The same can be applied to pink, which is not a shade, but has shades of purple and cyan as its root color. Desaturation and shading come into play to determine what specific shape of rose is being used, painted or printed.
shadow it is built on a nuance. It is simply adding pure black to a shade or a color that darkens its appearance. The color and its corresponding category or family remains the same, it’s just darker.
ADVENTURES it is the opposite of a shadow. It is a shade or color to which pure white is added in order to whiten its appearance and reflection. Pastels are usually considered hues, as they are lighter and softer versions of hues that usually have lower levels of saturation or intensity.
Between shades and nuances exist tones. Tones are shades with the addition of grays. Tones help to neutralize and “soften” the brightness of a particular color.
