Colors

This article was originally intended to describe some method I figured out to find colors that match each other well, but I have rapidly found widening the subject in order to be able to technically talk about colors; an introduction to the concept of colors is mandatory to fully comprehend the method I describe later.

Once upon a time, there was the Sun !

Basically made of Hydrogen and Helium, the sun's job is to ensure some chain reaction between those elements, that produces a massive amount of energy, which is expelled in the form of radiations. A radiation is mainly characterized by its frequency, so we have classified radiations by frequency ranges (called spectrums), and here I name the main ones :

Cosmic Rays, Gamma Rays, X-rays, Ultra Violet Rays, Light Rays, Infra Red Rays, Radio Rays. I'm sure you met some of those names somewhere.

The sun is not the only source emitting radiations, your screen for instance is doing the same right now but with just light rays (unless you're reading from an e-ink e-book reader).

Now, it happens that the Light Rays represent the spectrum to which the human eyes are sensitive; meaning that we can see that set of frequencies. Our eyes are a peripheral, they serve as decoders of light rays, converting them to electrical pulses that go to the brain, and he tells you : dude, that's blue ! Surely, after it's taught that that thing is called blue.

We did arrive to the colors, but we haven't yet finished with the rays yet. If colors are light rays, then what's the difference between blue, green, purple and the others ?

Well, it is the same as earlier when we have classified the rays; if we divide the light rays spectrum on its turn to smaller frequency ranges, we find in order :

violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

Remember your childhood painting lessons: when blue and yellow make green? you'll notice that in the list I've written above, green is between blue and yellow ! They should've explained that to us eariler...

Now let's summerize ; a color is a radiation of a certain frequency.

Now what about the black and white ?

In fact, these two aren't colors, they are light values. In other words, they are indications to whether or not there is light.

Let's consider this following frequency : 440 THz, it's the red. If a source only emits that frequency, then we see red, but if the source also emits another frequency with that one, then we see the mixture of the two colors (like when you mix watercolors), and if the source emits all the colors' frequencies, then we don't see "any color" : it is white ! Now if the source doesn't emit anything, there is no frequencies at all: that is black !

Grey (which is not a color but a light value also) represents somewhat the middle : the source does emit all the frequencies but that's neither enough powerful to be white nor totally null to be black.

Now just one thing before you assume you've understood everything : in painting, when you mix all the colors you got, you don't get white, but black ! But I just said white is the mixture of all colors...

Colors are frequencies, but painting is not, it is matter : pigments, thus is does not emit rays, but absorbs them (like all the matter around us), and that makes all the difference ; when the matter ( a car for example) absorbs all the light, there is nothing left to see : you see a black car, but if it does not absorb anything, it reflects (bounces back) all the light, : a white car ! and if it absorbs everything except the 440 THz frequency, that frequency is reflected and goes back to your eyes and you see a red car !

(Grey here means the car absords only a little of ALL the frequencies, and reflects back the rest)

Now if you clearly understood the whole of that, you are almost ready for the method to find matching colors.

In order to obtain a certain color, we mix some colors together, and people found out that with the follwing magical three : red, green and blue, we can make any color we want !

We are indeed talking about primary colors. But aren't the primary colors red, yellow and blue instead of red green and blue ? Both are correct, the former set are passive (matter that reflects light), and the latter are active (light itself).

Have you ever met these initials : RGB ? that's RedGreenBlue, you mostly see that as a color balance setting in your screen. So, in order to get a certain color, each of these three has to get a value, this value might go from 0 to 10 for example, or from 0 to 1000, the bigger the range is, the greater amount of colors we can get ; we talk here about color resolution.

If you go to your display settings, you will find "Color Quality" usually set to 32 bit, that represents the color resolution, 32bit means that the values range from 0 to 4 294 967 295 !

In computer language we use a different system of numbering than the one we use in our everyday life.

The "decimal" system, from the latin decimus: "tenth" (i.e. based on ten numbers)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14...

The sequence is to put all the numbers in order until the last (9) and then we add a digit on the left and we start counting again the numbers on the right.

Computers work with the "binary" system, from the latin "bini" meaning "two together", so there are only 0 and 1, and here is how it goes :

0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 ...

Computers use a more convenient [for them] numbering system which is the hexadecimal (hex is Greek and means six), hexa-decimal means 16 basic numbers:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 20 ...

If you keep looking at those numbers for a while you'll get it.

Now you are finally ready for the secret method!

Open the very simple painting program "Paint", or any other similar program.

On the menu bar, go to "Colors > Edit Colors" and click on "Define Custom Colors", on the bottom right, you have Red, Green and Blue, each one with his value.

(You find also Hue, Saturation and Luminosity, they represent another way to compose colors, but for now we'll do with RGB so that you get the idea and later you can find your own way)

Try to set some random values to the RGB and you'll see it gives you different colors...

In Paint, the values range from 0 to 255 and it uses the decimal system, in other software you will most commonly encounter the hexadecimal system, with values ranging from 0 to FF (wich is equivalent to the same: 0-255 in decimal).

If you see 05FF7A that means 05 of Red, FF of Green and 7A of Blue, they are always in that order : RGB, and for that resolution always 6 digits, 2 for each color : RRGGBB.

Now comes the art, the method I'm going to describe is based on the assumption that two or more things that go well with each other have a certain logical relationship linking them, and I'm proving it right now:

Still in paint, pick any random value between 0 and 255, 30 comes to my mind.

Pick another random value, that'll be 20 for me, and choose a simple mathematical operation, addition or subtraction... That'll be addition for me: 30 + 20 = 50 (I cared to choose an operation whose result will still be included in the 0-255 range). Do the same again: 50+20=70 and I have now three values: 30, 50 and 70, circular permutation to get three colors:

Color X: Red = 30, Green = 50, Blue = 70.
Color Y: Red = 70, Green = 30, Blue = 50.
Color Z : Red = 50, Green = 70, Blue = 30.

If you put these three colors side by side (make a simple drawing)...
You'll be surprised to see they go so well with each other :)

I'm not saying they are great colors, because that depends on your taste, I only say they go well with each other, meaning hey are harmonious together, independently from their "look".

With this method you have a lot of possibilities, but just two or three colors (X, Y, Z), but you got the idea, so you can practise with many combinations and operations, just make it that there is a logical relationship between the three values.

If you're a little skeptical about this, pick any picture you know in which you find that colors do really match each other, and for each color in that picture, get its RGB values (pick the colors with the color picker tool in your software, and go edit the color so that you get the values), write them down, look at them together, and you'll see there is a mathematical relationship linking them.

The idea in this article, behind aiming to explain some basic color concepts, has been to roughly show, that a generally, taste is not such a subjective concept when it comes to find things that fit each other, everything in this universe is linked, and there is an explanation to all of those links, we don't always know or understand most of them, which misleads us in dealing with so many things...

Know your world better to live better.