I know that CMYK represents colors that are printable.
I know that RGB is the oldest and based on the physics of light.
Why we made the RGB into the complex HEX code?
Why did we invent HSL if it translates to RGB eventually?
In: 6
As you said, CMYK is used in printing, and uses subtractive colors.
RGB uses additive colors and is used when emitting light directly.
RGB uses three different values for red, green blue, but they can be expressed either as float values between 0 and 1 each, or as integer values between 0 and 255. To make that standard and use that in web pages, we created the HEX system, which just takes the three values between 0 and 255 in hexadecimal (00 to FF) and concatenate them. This also has the advantage of being really short, which mattered quite a lot when modems weren’t as fast as they are today (think 3kb per second).
HLS is a format that is used by artists, because it’s easier for them to change a color by changing its hue, or saturation, or luminosity. If they want to go from a red to an orange, they just change the hue, as opposed to lowering the red value and increasing the green value together.
First, the hex code was to describe every color in the shortest way possible, there’s a variety of applications but mainly it’s short/small for the internets.
HSL has a separate alpha channel, some situations need a full alpha channel for transparency. It’s also a different way to pick shades of a color, for example, just adjusting the lightness can produce shades of the same color. That’s a little trickier in rgb.
CMYK was found by trial and error. Super hip graphic designers will print their own special mix for posters and the like. Not cost effective but can produce special effects.
Our eyes see red, green, and blue.
When we see “pure” yellow light, we’re perceiving it as halfway between red and green. If you shine a red and green light together, you do not get the yellow wavelength, but to our eyes it’s indistinguishable.
That’s why computer monitors emit red, green, and blue. Using those three primary colors they can simulate any colors that the human eye can perceive. To some other animal that sees different colors than we do, computer monitors and TVs probably look terrible. They’re entirely customized for the human eye.
CMYK is based on the opposite colors of red, green, and blue. The opposite of red is cyan, the opposite of green is magenta, and the opposite of blue is yellow. Those are good colors for ink because instead of emitting light, ink absorbs light. When you mix two inks, they combine which colors they absorb – what’s emitted is what’s left.
Hex is just a compact way to write a single RGB color. It seems complex if you’re not used to working with computers but programmers use hex all the time.
Finally HSL is handy for working with color changes because it better matches human perception. Let’s say I had an RGB color and I wanted to make it lighter. How would you do that? Or let’s say I wanted to make it more purpleish but the same brightness. HSL makes those sorts of calculations easy, RGB does not.
Latest Answers