I always remember learning that the three primary colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue. Many people rather insist that they are Red, Green, and Blue.
When you take paints or markers or something else along those lines, combing RYB will give you all the colors, whereas RGB will not. Furthermore, electronic displays and lights use RGB as their primary colors, not RYB.
So what exactly is the “true” set of primary colors. Or are there just two sets that function differently?
In: Technology
There is no RYB: printers use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). Kids get taught that it’s red and blue because those are familiar colours but the technical names as magenta and cyan. CMYK is the system for use with paints and inks, i.e., for subtractive colour mixing. You start off with a white canvas and each layer of paint subtracts a colour:
* cyan + magenta = blue
* cyan + yellow = green
* magenta + yellow = red
* cyan + magenta + yellow = black (but not a very good black, so we use black ink)
If you’re starting off with a black screen and using light to add colours, then you use RGB (red, green, blue). This is additive colour mixing as used on computer monitors and TVs.
* red + green = yellow
* red + blue = magenta
* green + blue = cyan
* red + green + blue = white
So there are two completely different (in a sense opposite) sets of colour primaries: additive and subtractive. The one you use depends on how you’re creating colour.
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