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What is color?
We see the world around us as steeped in color. Color is in the first instance simply an aspect of how we
experience our environment and is therefore subjective. Our color experiences are closely related to brain
activity that is triggered by signals that our eyes send to it. These signals undergo a complex and highly
interlinked sequence of processing stages that make the relationship between what our eyes emit and what
we experience anything but direct. The signals sent by the eye depend on the light-sensitive cells that line
the back of our eyes, and they belong to three types, each sensitive to electromagnetic radiation of different
physical properties (wavelengths). Such electromagnetic radiation is called light and objects appear to have
certain colors because of how the objects interact with light (by emission, reflection, absorption,
transmission, scattering, etc.).
Our individual experiences of color are also affected by our previous experiences and memories and by the
way in which we put our experiences into language. Finally, environmental factors such as changes in
lighting, scene content, or the proximity of other colors also have an effect, which makes the way in which we
view a given display or print an essential part of the colors we see. Differences in all these aspects (from
physiological differences between people, to differences in their past experiences, memories and linguistic
tendencies) can result in people talking about colors differently even in response to the same light reflected
from an single object. However, many similarities exist between how individuals experience color. You can
make very specific judgments about color that others will also agree with when care is taken in the process.
In conclusion we can say that color results from the interaction between light, objects, and a viewer, which
makes it a very complex and to a large degree subjective phenomenon.
The problem: color in the computer world
Color-imaging devices such as printers, displays, projectors, and televisions create colors by using different
methods and materials (colorants). Displays, for instance, use colorants that emit red (long wavelength),
green (medium wavelength), and blue (short wavelength) light. A white color requires all three colorants and
black requires that none of them be used (i.e. that no light be emitted). Devices that use light-emitting
colorants are called additive, because the light from them is added together before it enters a viewer’s eyes.
Printers, on the other hand, use materials that absorb parts of the light that shines on them. They are called
subtractive. Typical prints use cyan (red absorbing), magenta (green absorbing), and yellow (blue absorbing)
inks and an additional black ink that absorbs light at all wavelengths. To get white using a printer requires
not absorbing any of the light that illuminates a piece of paper and to get black, all of the inks need to be
used to absorb all of the light that is present.
To control the output of color imaging devices, the following color spaces are normally used:
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RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) is the color space typically used for additive devices. A color is represented
as a combination of specific quantities of red, green, and blue colorants that create the range of colors
(color gamut) in the device.
96 Chapter 7 Color management ENWW