Why is cyan not called blue

Graphic designers are familiar with working in the RGB model on a computer but converting images to the CMYK model needed for full-color printing. Close Return to page. Adoption 4. Aidan Anaya-Ponce BidPractice 3. Bill Grant 7. Blackwood Bridge 7. Calligraphy Cancer Card Games Carmen Ponce Sforzini 8. Constitution 2. Di Giorgio Dogs 2. Eastern Mysticism 8.

Elliot 4. The combination is a bruise colored dull purple. Vivid purple is the result of combining magenta and cyan or blue.

You need to have a good magenta in your palette. My favorite is Daniel Smith Quinacridone Pink. If you are using prismacolor pencils, the magenta color is called process red just to add to the confusion. Blue is confusing because many hues get called blue. In this case we are talking about navy blue such as ultramarine.

This color can be mixed by combining cyan paint with a little bit of magenta. Greens mixed from yellow and ultramarine make a dull unsaturated green. If you want to mix vivid greens, mix yellow and cyan. Cyan is the color that you need to get comfortable with. If you are using watercolor, Phthalocyanine Blue GS , also called monastral blue, and phthalo blue is a good cyan. If you are using prism acolor pencils, look for true blue.

What then are the primary colors? Your color printer knows the answer: cyan, yellow and magenta. These colors mix a bright and clean spectrum.

You can mix red, green and blue from these primaries. Orange and violet still occupy their familiar locations in between red and yellow and blue and magenta respectively. Interestingly enough, the color wheel for light is the is the same as pigment only the primary and secondary colors are reversed.

You mix red, blue and green light to create all the other colors. Those names are already used as the primary colors for light.. If we mix them together, between them they are absorbing everywhere! The resultant mixture, although it may be a purple colour, will be dull and dark. The absorption spectra of these colours are too broad.

It is better to use cyan than blue because cyan absorbs mainly in the red part of the spectrum; and magenta absorbs mainly in the green part of the spectrum. If we add magenta and cyan together we get absorbing in the red and green parts of the spectrum but we allow the blue light to be reflected. If this in-depth explanation busted every color myth that's been ingrained in your brain since childhood and you're feeling a bit panicked, take heart: coloring books are reportedly great stress busters.

And if you're desperate to learn more, check out Westland's two-minute video series on the subject and his blog. Fairchild also created a great resource that he says is for kids, but honestly — every adult should be required to study it. If you feel like every person you've dated has cited blue as their favorite color , you're probably not mistaken — apparently, 40 percent of the worldwide population says it's their fave purple is a close second at 14 percent. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close.

Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Physical Science. Well, Not Exactly. The primary colors are red, yellow and blue, as we all learned in kindergarten, right?

Well, partly right, but not completely. Wikimedia Commons CC By Now That's Interesting. In art class, we learned that the three primary colors are red, yellow and blue. In the world of physics, however, the three primary colors are red, green and blue. What is additive color mixing? Additive color mixing is the process of mixing red, green and blue light in different ways to create new colors.

Every light source addition makes the resulting color brighter and closer to white. Combining all three colors equally results in white while removing them results in black. Paint is a subtractive color system, and therefore the most effective primary colors for painting are cyan, magenta, and yellow.

Note that high-quality paintings typically do not use just three primary colors since more vivid scenes can be achieved using dozens of primary colors. But when teaching art, it's easier to start more simply; with just three primary colors. Now, to a little grade-schooler, the words "cyan" and "magenta" don't mean much. Furthermore, to an undiscerning youngster's eye, cyan looks awfully close to blue and magenta looks awfully close to red.

Therefore, cyan-magneta-yellow becomes corrupted to blue-red-yellow. Elementary art teachers either ignorantly perpetuate this less effective color model because that's how they were taught as children , or intentionally perpetuate it because it's just too hard to teach six-year-old's the difference between cyan and blue.

Historical tradition was also a prime driver of the red-yellow-blue color system since it was historically thought to be effective before the details of human vision were understood. Since the red-yellow-blue color system is less effective, it is not really used anywhere these days except in elementary school art. The color system that best matches the human eye is the red-green-blue color system.

For additive color systems like computer screens, the primary colors of this type of system are red, green, and blue. For subtractive color systems like inks, the primary colors of this type of system are the opposites of red, green, and blue, which are cyan, magenta, and yellow. The red-yellow-blue painting color system is effectively a corruption of the cyan-magenta-yellow system, since cyan is close to blue and magenta is close to red.

Public Domain Image, source: Christopher S. The top image shows how red, green, and blue add to make other colors, such as in computer screens.