Where does color come from?

Question

Where did the primary colors come from to make colors in fabric, paint, ect? Like blue, red, green, yellow, gray, black, white.

Answer 1

Do you remember studying rods and cones in science?

Different colors are just light waves of different frequencies hitting your eyes and interpreted by your brain. I know, it takes the magic out of it, doesn't it? :)

We have three different types of cones. That's basically why there are three primary colors. People who are colorblind are missing 1 out of the 3 cone types.

By the way, dogs don't see in black and white, but they can't see all colors, but they have two types of cones.

Answer 2

Light comes in many different waveforms. Change the length of the waveform, changes our eyes interpretation of how we see the "color" of the light. Black of course if the absence of light. White is the mix of all the colors of our field of vision of the spectrum.
The electromagnetic spectrum is very large. The science textbooks show the spectrum from the low frequency radio waves, to the ultra high frequency gamma rays. Our eyes only see a very small portion of this whole spectrum. The rest remain invisible to us.
It's probably better this way too. Imagine if we could see, let's say "infra-red". This is basically heat radiation. We would be blinded due to so much of it is around, from the sun heating the Earth, to all our man made stuff that produce heat.
Supposedly some creatures are capable of seeing into the invisible portion of the spectrum. Supposedly goldfish can see infra-red. Bees supposedly can see some ultra-violet.
Our color cones are limited, but it's enough.

Answer 3

All light comes from the sun, or artificial light! The sun produces essentially white light although its considered a yellow sun.When white light is broken down by a prism, all colors are represented from infrared to ultra-violet. A particular color results from the light that is reflected from an object. For example a green leaf: The surface of the leaf reflects green light and absorbs all other colors.I have simplified this explanation... I hope you have understood it!

Answer 4

Wow! Most people are answering your top-level question (which was what I thought you were asking when I clicked the question), rather than the question you're really asking, in the details.

Interesting.

Sorry, I don't know the sources of dyes and paints. When people first started coloring things, they used natural sources from plants, ground up rocks and charcoal -- wherever they could find colors that wouldn't fade too fast.

Then, a guy who was trying to make artificial quinine for combat malaria created the first artificial dye. (I think, though I may be mis-remembering.)

Now most colorings are artificial, chemical compounds.

Maybe if you put your details up front and tried the question again -- possibly in the Chemistry category, someone who knew more would answer.

Answer 5

Chemical compounds have specific properties to show beautiful colors. For instance Titanium Dioxide is perfect white.

These chemicals are mass produced in chemical plants because of their color properties. Their color stems from their chemical composition and struture and how these things effect the way they reflect light.

White light = red orange yellow green blue indigo and violet.
when u see Green. the object is absorbing red orange yellow blue indigo and violet light energies and reflecting the Green light energies. For more on this topic look into whats called the electro-magnetic spectrum. To fully understand color one must understand that light is energy. And colors are what our brains interperate from specific wavelengths of this energy.

Answer 6

Color is created by a material's ability to absorb lightwaves. For instance a green Mountain Dew can absorbs ALL color except green, red and yellow. A school bus is painted with a material that absorbs all color except yellow. If you mix ALL colors from a light spectrum you get white. If you remove ALL color from a light spectrum you get black.


Ta-Da!

Answer 7

Color is the effect of different wavelengths and frequencies when light hits the eye. When light hits the different color cones in the retina, there is the color you can see. The colors of the visible spectrum are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (red having the longest wavelength and violet having the shortest)

Answer 8

ok the light from the sun can be split up into the colours of the rainbow this is called refraction ..... when you see an tomatoe for example you see the colour red except if you are colour blind colour blindness is called daltonism do your own web search on that later
so why do we see a RED tomato? .. because the skin of the tomato has the ability to absorb all the other colours in the rainbow spectrum that makes up sunlight and it reflects the RED colour into you eye (rods and cones as said by someone else here) where your brain perceives it as RED. Works with most lights and colours
The colouring in cloth and other materials are either organic (carbon chemistry) dyes originally obtained from aniline (coal tars) , vegtable dyes animal dyes (from beetles for example) or earth pigments such as terracotta ochre and sienna dug up from various places one of the oldest dyes was made from murex a sea snail when mixed with urine it provided a purple dye used for the emperors cloths in roman times another is indigo which is from plant that should be enough to be getting on with
None of this was CUT & PASTE and certified GM free advice
much Love

Answer 9

Pigments to create various colors come from different chemical sources such as iron oxide and from some plant sources. If you are meaning the actual perception of color in our brain then it derives from the fact that light is composed of different frequencies (or different wave lengths).

Answer 10

Pigments which absorb and reflect different wavelengths of the spectrum ie green reflects green wavelenths, blue reflects blue wavelengths...black absorbs all wavelengths etc