Introduction

Background information on how color works seems to be one of the least explored topics on the Web. Tutorials will frequently tell you to use this RGB color or that Hex color, but seldom follow through with an explanation as to why that particular color will hopefully look good where it's being used. So, in this article, I'll take a closer look at the fundamentals of how color works its magic.

The Color Wheel

One of the most common teaching aids in demonstrating how color works is the "color wheel". In theory, every color in existence can be found somewhere on the color wheel. Understanding the color wheel helps you to understand some of the basics of imaging such as hue, saturation, and brightness.

There is no definitive rule as to how many colors a visual representation of the color wheel should contain. However, using the millions of colors that the human eye can recognize isn't very practical, so the most common format is for a color wheel demonstration to use a few dozen sample colors.

The color wheel is divided into 6 triangular segments. The three primary colors that occur in nature (red, yellow, and blue) occupy 3 of the triangular segments. Note: You may be wondering why the 3 primary colors in nature are different than the 3 primary colors that your monitor uses (red, green, and blue). It's a good question, and it requires a somewhat detailed answer. I'll address it later in the article.

Each of the 3 primary colors, (red, yellow, and blue) are then combined in equal amounts with their neighboring primary colors, to create the secondary colors: Red + Yellow = Orange Yellow + Blue = Green Blue + Red = Purple