What are the primary colors?

[MeaganS]

I always thought they were red, yellow, and blue. But I've recently seen from a few sources, including a science kit for my kids, that they are red, green, and blue. Am I misunderstanding some scientific/art debate or something? What are the primary colors?

[SoCal_Bear]

No...it is red, yellow, and blue for art. All colors can be derived from blends of primary colors. Green = yellow + blue.

 

However, the primary wave lengths that your eye perceives: that's red, blue, green.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by calbear

[SoCal_Bear]

I read somewhere that mantis shrimp perceive 12 primary colors. 

[EKS]

It's red, yellow, and blue for pigments, and red, green, and blue for light.  Weird, I know.

[Tanaqui]

In additive color theory, which is what you're familiar with from art class, it's red/blue/yellow. In subtractive color theory, it's magenta/yellow/cyan.

[MeaganS]

It was a light kit. So it is a science vs. art thing!

Edited May 1, 2017 by Meagan S

[daijobu]

This is one of my favorite videos on how we perceive light.  (Also produced by a brilliant homeschooled friend.)

[Shifra]

Yes, the primary colors are red, yellow and blue. You use these colors combined (along with neutral colors of white and black) to make all of the other colors.

 

However, I have this book, Web Colors, which shows how to mix colors for computer graphics programs. The coding in computer graphic programs is by mixing this much red, this much green and this much blue. As this book states: "Screen pixels are so small that we see different colors on the screen due to optical blending. RGB (red, green, blue) is an additive color model. Different wavelengths of light are emitted by your screen's pixels."

Edited May 4, 2017 by Shifra

[Tanaqui]

Stage lighting also works that way, Shifra, doesn't it?

[SporkUK]

Traditional Art Pigments Mediums: Red, Blue, Yellow

Digital Art Printed Mediums: Magenta, Cyan, Different Yellow which is why colour printers are as they are. 

Lights (including digital art that never leaves a screen I've been told): Red, Green, Blue though some people apparently have more receptors in their eyes that might include yellow or maybe even other colour receptors and that for most of us we can't see pure green because the receptors that register green can't activate without also activating red or blue receptors...and we register magenta/pink even though it isn't in the visible colour spectrum because of our receptors and how our brain registers things. My 10 year old loves medical documentaries/programmes on the range and limits of the human body and there was one on senses on the BBC a while back that discussed it in detail.