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Old June 11th, 2007, 01:08 PM
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Default Re: RGB vs. CMY Color Mixing

Quote:
Originally Posted by PadawanGeek View Post
Oh, so there's no such thing as an RGB Scroller?
That is correct in that there is no scroller that could be loaded with red, green, and blue gel strings and give you any output. Putting any kind of color media, be it dichroic or gel you are creating the apparent color by either reflecting back the unused light (dichroic) or turning the unused light into heat (gel). If you put a combination of any two "pure" primary colors in front of a light (using either dichroic or gel) you will actually get no output. In short, there is no such thing as subtractive RGB mixing, it is impossible.

ON the other hand, if you have multiple sources RGB additive color mixing is the preferred method. If you play with the levels carefully and set your lights up well then you can create a wide range of colors from 3 sources or 3-circuit wash fixtures.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chaos is Born
When it comes to both Graphics and Lighting i prefer RGB.
I find it interesting that you say this on account of the fact that in the graphics world, most printed graphics are created using some variation on the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) printing process. Many new printers now use 8 inks, two tones of each color. Printing from an RGB palette is quite difficult, yes in pigment color theory it works, but have you tried it recently? It is very hard to create shading when you start with saturate primary colors.

Granted, a computer display is incapable of displaying graphics work in CMY space, but with all of the color conversion profiles today, it makes it much more beneficial to work in programs like Photoshop in CMY space especially if you are printing things yourself. CMY is the language your printer understands. If you are working for digital display then RGB is the color space you should work in.

Also important to note is that color theory is not the same for pigment and light. In pigment, R+G+B=some ugly brownish blackish color (you can't mix true black). In light, R+G+B=White. This is because of the same principals as color mixing above. Weather you paint the floor red and shine white light on it, or you put a red gel in front of a light, the red pigment in either case absorbs the rest of the spectrum only reflecting or allowing red wavelengths to pass. Thus, if you had a blue object you put in front of a red light it would appear black as there is no light in the blue wavelengths to reflect off the object.

There, color theory 101, a lot more than I thought I was going to say, hope it helps.
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