What if it were possible to subtract colours from each other?

[BitBuster]

You know, in the context of, say, paints. How would this work? I mean, it's not exactly inconceivable, just outside of our general scope of what we think substances such as paints are. I suppose you could water orange down with yellow until it became more yellow than orange, but I'm talking about actually extracting the red from it.

What if the solution involved tampering with the properties of light, rather than the paint itself? That would raise a whole philosophical issue regarding the issue of colour...right? I dunno. Science ain't my bag.

Screw it. Pale blue is the best colour ever. Bar none. Primary colours rule!

[geodave]

Well, pale blue isn't primary (although you probably knew that), but cyan is when you are talking about light. BTW teal rules.

I suggest you google "additive colors" and "subtractive colors" -- you really CAN remove colors when you're dealing with light.

Also, if I remember correctly after 30-some years, Mr. Land (who invented the polaroid, or "Land" camera), did a lot of experiments with colored light and our perception of color. In one experiment (which we saw on a 16mm film) he had a bunch of color blotches on a screen. He covered all but the brown section, then bathed the room in green light. The brown splotch looked green. Then he removed the blocks and let the other colors be viewed. The light was still green, but now the brown looked BROWN.

Color is part perception and part objective science. Weird, huh?

[BitBuster]

When it comes to light, isn't there an alternate set of primary colours? I think green replaces one of them...

I've seen a similar optical illusion, but I think it had to do with placing red and yellow dots on a grid; if you look at them closely, you can differentiate the dots, but from a distance, they appear orange...

The world is very, very weird.

[geodave]

Primary colors of pigment (like paint): Red yellow blue

Primary colors of light (like tvs): red blue green

Primary colors of ink (like printers): magenta cyan yellow black

Primary colors of your eyes: red green blue yellow (the yellow registers as a lack of blue)

So, it depends on what you're doing. White light (such as from the sun) has all colors in it, and if you filter it, you can remove certain parts. A cyan filter removes red, for example.

[IceyLava108]

Black + Red +
Lime Green +
Turquoise +
Yellow +
Blue +
Teal +
Gold +
Orange +
Purple +
Green =


I don't really know the answer to this.

[BitBuster]

...all the same, I'm impressed with your commitment to this thread. I mean, it's distressing how few people take advantage of this forum's ability to create styles, etc.

[geodave]

Black + Red +
Lime Green +
Turquoise +
Yellow +
Blue +
Teal +
Gold +
Orange +
Purple +
Green =


I don't really know the answer to this.

Probably some ugly brown or grey color. Would be found in the background of most modern videogames.

[BitBuster]

Maybe someone should try it out (with watercolours, or perhaps crayons) and give us a definitive answer.