Color
Working with colors
In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is — as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.
In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually. To this end, the beginning is not a study of color systems.
First, it should be learned that one and the same color evokes innumerable readings. Instead of mechanically applying or merely implying laws and rules of color harmony, distinct color effects are produced-through recognition of the interaction of color-by making, for instance, two very different colors look alike, or nearly alike." — Josef Albers
Albers' way of naming the visual phenomena arising from looking at colors together, is interaction of colors. He doesn't speak of visual illusions, as if somehow this was a failure of our perceptual systems or a cheap trick conjured by some someone to create confusion, the truth is plainly available to the eye. And the truth is that this interaction is very much the nature of colour, similar colors can be perceived differently depending on their companions in a scene. Color theory, while a useful learning, can be problematic if we apply it methodically without letting the actual visual experience of color guide our composition.
Color mixing systems
In the additive color system, the appearance of a color is determine by different gradations of the primary color components, which in the case of light, and theremore most screens, is based on RED, GREEN and BLUE.
For print processes where each layering of the inks results in less light being reflected back, the substractive color system is more appropriate. In this system the primary colors are RYB (RED, YELLOW and BLUE). This is the color system that you likely learnt in primary school as it is the one most commonly used in painting too. RYB is most appropriate when the pigments actually mix. With modern printing technologies there wasn't as much color mixing as there was layering and for this purpose red and blue where replaced by magenta and cyan sometimes known as "process red" and "process blue", which are more effective at filtering when colors are applied in layers or printed using half-toning techniques. This color system is commonly known as CMY, with K sometimes added for pure blacks in inkjet or other photomechanical printing processes.
For the purpose of this course it is not vital that you master conversions between these two color systems, but it is important to understand that what you make on screen might not look as good in print and that color, and how colors are used in these processes will play a role in that difference in quality. So if for example, you use Processing for a generative poster design and you compose your image on screen, you have to make sure that the correct color system is used before you submit it to print if you want your colors to look right.
Cool effects with digital colors
Color cycling or Palette shifting was an animation technique used in 8bit videogames. Have a good look at this site and observe how color can be used to animate and to change the mood of a scene.
effectgames.com tool to explore 8bit color cycling techniques
Tools
The following tools will help you in choosing colors for your works:
- Colordot HSL linked to mouse position let's you quickly build palettes
- Adobe Color CC implements auto palettes
- Pantone Color Finder doesn't always make sense to use Pantone in digital palettes (Pantone is meant for pigments, not for additive colors, e.g. you can't have gold color on screen but you can have a gold ink pigment)
- Colourco.de similar but has tools for pairing colors
- Coolors.co decent at finding shares, too bloated for my taste