A summary about primary colors and how we obtain and perceive them. Color is a visual experience. That is, it is a sensory impression that occurs thanks to the fact that we have three types of color receptors in the retina: the cones. These receivers respond to very specific wavelengths.
What are the primary colors?
The primary colors are those that cannot be obtained by mixing with other colors , which is why they are considered unique and singular. However, it is possible to mix them together, obtaining a wide range of tones with them.
Although the idea that the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue is well established in popular culture, these three are not really the true pure primary colors. There are different color models that, depending on whether the color is due to a material or light, the primary colors are one or the other .
What most color models do have in common is that they defend the idea that there are always three primary colors, although different from model to model. This is because the human eye has trichromatic vision. This peculiarity is due to the fact that in the retina we have, most of us, three types of receptors that respond to very specific wavelengths of light: the cones.
Primary color theories
There are different theories about primary colors, two of which are the most influential: that of light colors, or additive theory, and that of pigment colors, or subtractive theory.
Additive theory
The light color is immaterial, created by sunlight or artificial light. The light colors are obtained from the sum of radiation of different wavelengths and in different proportions.
The primary colors within the additive system are red, green and blue, constituting the RGB model (Red, Green and Blue). These colors are in white light, and are obtainable if that same light is decomposed with a prism. In turn, combining red, green and blue light we obtain a white light beam.
The primary colors of the additive system can be combined in pairs, giving as secondary colors the following:
Red + green = yellow.
Red + blue = magenta.
Green + blue = cyan.
Likewise, the absence of primary tones makes the color black appear. This is because the human eye is not able to recognize tones in the environment if there is no light in the environment.
Because you can play with the lights to obtain different colors, this is the system used by devices that work through light emissions, that is, screens.
Subtractive theory
The subtractive primary colors are those found in pigments and dyes, being magenta, yellow and cyan, called the CYM model (Cyan, Yellow and Magenta).
In the past, color was believed to be a quality of the object. However, with advances in optics, it was discovered that the color we see in an object is due to what kind of light is reflected by it.
Depending on the pigment that the object has, the white light that falls on it is incompletely reflected. On the one hand, some light beams will be absorbed by the same object, while others will be reflected. The reflection is what the human eye captures, assigning it the color of which we see the object.
For example, imagine a magenta colored object. As we have already said, white light has all the colors in it. This light, when hitting the object, is partially absorbed, absorbing all the colors of the visible spectrum except for the magenta, which bounces and is what we end up seeing.
As with light colors, subtractive primary colors can be combined, forming secondary colors.
Magenta + yellow = red.
Yellow + cyan = green.
Cyan + Magenta = Blue.
Interestingly, from the combination of the subtractive primary colors we obtain, as secondary colors, the colors that are primary in the additive model. Conversely, by combining the additive primary colors, we obtain, as its secondary ones, the subtractive primary colors.
Unlike light colors, which combined result in a white light beam, mixed pigment colors result in black.
Since these colors are directly related to the pigments of an object, the subtractive primary color system is used in pictorial or printed elements, such as pictures, banners, books, colors of industrial objects.
Traditional primary colors
Originally it was thought that the primary pigment colors were the same that we have in popular culture today: yellow, red and blue.
In fact, the famous German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe defended this idea in his 1810 book Zur Farbenlehre ("Theory of Colors"). In that book he created a model that we could call RYB if he had succeeded (Red, Yellow and Blue), being represented in a color circle and where they were united forming other secondary colors. This model would be the forerunner of the current CYM model.
Although this system has become obsolete, it is still used in plastic arts, especially in courses focused on primary school children.
The psychological primary colors
The theory of psychological primary colors was expounded by Ewald Hering. It included up to six primary psychological colors, grouped into opposite pairs, namely: black and white, red and green, yellow and blue.
Although in plastic arts this theory has not had much repercussion, it has had it in the study of visual perception, being demonstrable in practice. For example, if you stare at a green object and then look away at a white or black surface, the silhouette of the object remains fixed on the retina, but seeing its opposite color, which would be red. This same process can be repeated with objects of different colors, appearing, in effect, their opposite color .
Origin of the color wheel
Isaac Newton was one of the first to study primary colors and their derivatives, expounding his theory in his book Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colors of Light (1704). In it he affirmed that there were seven basic colors in light, which were the ones that can be seen in the rainbow : red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue and violet. In addition to this description, he made great contributions to optics with the creation of the first color wheel.
The color wheel, as we know it today, arises from the primary colors. In this circle the primary colors are located in equidistant positions, where the mixture of two of them will give rise to the secondary colors. A tertiary color emerges from the mixture of a primary color with its secondary.
Newton is credited with discovering that the colors we perceive can be identified thanks to light, as we explained earlier in the subtractive theory section. The light, when hitting an object with a certain pigment, it decomposes, bouncing the unabsorbed light and absorbing the rest. It is that unabsorbed light that colors the object in question.
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