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Colour Vision
Colour Vision
Have a look at this nice simulation from PHeT which explains how the human brain perceives (sees) colour. Colour is simply a function of light hitting your retina (a part of the eye) at a particular wavelength.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum (and light)
The Electromagnetic Spectrum (and light)
Have a look at this beautiful infographic (from 1944!) which details the electromagnetic spectrum in all its glory. See how what humans (and some other living creatures) perceive as colour is in fact a tiny, tiny part of the spectrum. The spectrum starts with long waves on the left hand side and gets shorter as it moves to the right. Therefore the longer wavelengths are reds. You can view it interactively here.
How do computers and computer screens in particular reproduce all those colours we see in real life?
As you know already, every colour can be defined as a combination of red, green and blue. We can vary the amounts of red, green and blue on the screen by varying the brightness of each of the individual pixels.
This lovely, short video from the creators of Instagram explains a little bit about how binary and hexadecimal numbers work and how we use them to define pixel colour.
If you are designing a digital resource like a website, the link to the W3Schools website will provide lots of useful information about choosing a suitable colour scheme and how to find the right 'css' or hexadecimal code for a particular colour.
Adobe produce a wonderful tool which is able to take the hard work out of selecting a colour scheme that goes together without clashing. Check it out. It is amazing.
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