Design Amber vs. Yellow

derekleffew

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Senior Team
Premium Member
A curious conundrum: Can/should the words Amber and Yellow be used interchangeably? Or does one use the yellow when talking color theory and amber when lighting? Yellow is a color of light. Amber is fossilized tree sap. Lavender is a weed. Pure H2O is not aqua.

Please discuss.
 
Certainly not interchangeable. I consider yellow, amber and orange to each be unique and individual colors.
 
I agree with gafftapegrennia, they are no where near interchangeable. I think of amber as the middle ground between yellow and orange, as it tends to be yellow with hints of red.
 
Orange, amber, and yellow are defiantly different colors and not interchangeable. So have to agree with greenia and MNicolai. Look at R10, R20, and R23, they are different colors.

As for the comment about yellow being a color of light, is not orange a color of light as well? It gets its name from the fruit, and color is based off of objects absorbing and reflecting certain wave lengths of light. Likewise, amber comes from fossilized tree sap or beer (amber colored beer). Lavender, indigo, and violet all come from the plant they represent. We could call red apple or green apple, which who do sometimes describing things as apple red or candy apple red or apple green.

Lavender and violet are just different versions of purple aka blue and red or cyan and magenta. They are unique enough to get their own 'color name' however. Likewise, orange and amber are just middle grounds between red and green, magenta and yellow, or red and yellow depending on your color system of choice.
 
Argghhh....

You should hear the conversation when my wife - who's a scenic artist, and I "discuss" the names of colors.

Topic the other day started with her observing a Chevrolet and commenting "How can you have a red Cobalt ?".

SB
 
Yep, different. To me, yellow is R10 while amber is R16 through 20-something; straw is somewhere between the two, leaning more to yellow.
 
The Chick Pea is also neither a chick nor a pea. Yet they are still delicious. The chick pea is also neither amber or yellow. While I personally consider amber and yellow separate colors with respect to gel, I think the real answer is that amber is a darker shade of the hue yellow.
 
The Chick Pea is also neither a chick nor a pea. Yet they are still delicious. The chick pea is also neither amber or yellow. While I personally consider amber and yellow separate colors with respect to gel, I think the real answer is that amber is a darker shade of the hue yellow.

I don't like chick peas, and the only place that I have ever had falafel that I liked was in Israel. I also don't agree that amber is a darker shade of the hue yellow. Amber has red in it, yellow does not. Yellow is one of the primaries of light, you can't subractively mix to yellow, but you can to amber.
 
I agree with gafftapegrennia, they are no where near interchangeable. I think of amber as the middle ground between yellow and orange, as it tends to be yellow with hints of red.

So then why is it considered CMY color mixing and not CMA?
 
I don't like chick peas, and the only place that I have ever had falafel that I liked was in Israel. I also don't agree that amber is a darker shade of the hue yellow. Amber has red in it, yellow does not. Yellow is one of the primaries of light, you can't subractively mix to yellow, but you can to amber.

Here's where being married to a painter is fun. They consider yellow a Primary, where as lighting folks consider yellow a Secondary, thus the reason CMY is used for secondary color mixing in ML's, w/ RGB as primaries, etc.. TV systems mix to yellow all the time with Red and Green. So does lighting, thought the lamp/light source varies the mix quality.

Here's WiKis take: Primary color - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As to Derek's question, the Name of the color is generally subjective. Older LD's "think" about color, based usually on the names as used in Gel books and such. When I hear Amber, I think Roscolux R22 or such, not the color of sap. When I think Magenta, it's usually around R46 or so, while an LD raised on Lee might have a different image based on the name in a Lee gel book. My wife and I have often numerous conversations about what magenta looks like. I recall a student many years back, who could not visualize Amber, as he had no knowledge of the fossilized tree resin and didn't know the gel names.

Ultimately the name of color is merely a reference point used in communication. Never assume that a person to whom you are describing color too, has the same reference point, ESPECIALLY a painter.

Steve B.
 
So then why is it considered CMY color mixing and not CMA?
Thank you.

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.............RED
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..MAG................YEL
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BLU.....................GRN
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.............CYN
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What is the complement of BLU? (Most lighting texts say amber.)

Subtractively mixing equal amounts of MAG and CYN creates CGO, not BLU; additively mixing equal amounts of RED and GRN creates a color more AMB than YEL.

See http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/collaborative-articles/9166-color-mixing-lighting.html for more.
 
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You know me....that teacherly side just pops out with the questions to make them think.
 
I've always considered Yellow and Amber to be two distinct colors. Amber is more towards the red side of the spectrum making more of an Orange. While Yellow is more of an equal mix of green and red.
 

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