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
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.
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