What two colors mixed together make black? What two colors mixed together make white?

Answer 1

This depends on what's being mixed (paint, ink, projected light, etc) For printing with ink on paper, for example, "subtractive primaries" (cyan, magenta and yellow) are normally used, whereas the additive primaries (red, green and blue) are used in color displays for example, but they can obviously be used for printing with inks on paper. In this case (ink on paper) the light you see is being reflected from the white paper and what the inks do is to absorb certain colors. The additive primaries each absorb the other two additive-primary colors, whereas the subtractive primaries each only absorb only one of the additive-primary colors i.e. cyan absorbs red, magenta absorbs green and yellow absorbs blue. Printing with any two of the additive-primary colors will give you black (though in actual color printing, they usually use a black ink for that purpose.) To get white, you just don't put down any ink because the paper is white.

If you are projecting light onto a screen, you get white by projecting all three additive primaries or you could use just two colors by projecting a subtractive primary plus its complementary additive primary - yellow plus blue for example. The screen is designed to simply reflect whatever is projected onto it. In this case, you get black by projecting no light onto the point where black is desired.

I notice several people answering that white is the absence of color whereas black is the presence of all colors. I think that must be the way that artists look at it because they are usually working on paper, canvas, etc. Physicists would say just the opposite - i.e. white is the presence of all colors, whereas black is the absence of all colors. The physicists' way is correct when considering the effects of various wavelengths of light impinging on the retina of the eye.

Answer 2

no two colors make white, and all colors together make black, i dont think u can do it with just 2 colors, but i could be wrong.

Answer 3

Black is the absence of all color and white is the entire spectrum of color. You can't mix to get them.

Answer 4

black is the absence of color. white is the spectrum colors mixed together (think rainbows and light). you can't get either by mixing on the palate.

Answer 5

Hypothetically speaking, white is a culmination of all colors together while black is the lack of any color at all.

Answer 6

If you are talking LIGHT, then yes...black is absence of color, that is absence of light. However, if you are not talking light, but PAINT or something similar, all the colors mixed would make black since they are ADDITIVE.

to make white....would be the absence of all addition of color...

Answer 7

black is the color of all mixed colors white is the absence of any color

Answer 8

you can't mix colors to get black or white... you can get pretty close to black but they're tints and shades not colors

Answer 9

Black contains all colors--------true white is just white

Answer 10

you cant make white. white is without colour. you start out with white. black is every colour mixed together. interesting, heh?