– Using additive colour theory, red + red + blue = what?

Question

ELI5

[https://i.imgur.com/Y3SxynO.gif](https://i.imgur.com/Y3SxynO.gif) (image for your convenience)

Using the additive colour theory, when I add equal parts of red & blue together it is magenta.

But what happens if I add two parts red & one part blue together? Is it still “pure” magenta? Or has it shifted off to the side of red, a little?

Context: I’m creating a game using additive colour theory and I’m a bit perplexed on this one.

In: 0

Answer 1

On the RGB color wheel, the color #FF0080 (i.e. 100% of red pixels lit, 50% of blue pixels lit, and 0% of green pixels lit), is usually called “Rose”.

Obviously if you combine Red and Magenta additively you’ll get a very *bright* Rose. Difficult to represent that on a computer screen, since it has a limit to how bright it can get. If you wanted to be scientifically accurate you’d have to instead show it as Maroon (#800000) + Purple (#800080) = Rose (#FF0080), which probably isn’t very satisfying.