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Color Science

Discover the fascinating world of color science, where artists and scientists explore hue, saturation, and value to create stunning visuals. Dive into the perception of color, learn how light wavelengths affect our eyes, and uncover the role color plays in storytelling through Pixar's animated films.

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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user jacob montgomery
    What is color to you? To me it is pretty much everything and everywhere.
    (63 votes)
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  • starky tree style avatar for user dunnm
    Do colors make us feel comfortable? I mean like do certain colors make us have feelings?
    (7 votes)
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    • leaf green style avatar for user Tino
      It is known, that colors do evoke certain emotions/feelings in humans. This is due to many different factors. While this is a rather complex subject, i'll try to highlight a few points:
      - RED usually is a very alerting color. This is probably because our blood is red as well, and seeing blood makes you alert.
      - GREEN, on the other hand, is usually a rather pleasant color. It represents nature (for obvious reasons) and thus feels 'positive' and 'good'.
      - BLUE is a very pleasing hue as well, as it is another indicator for life: it reminds of water and the sky, two natural phenomenon which have been around us from the beginning.

      As i mentioned before, there is a lot more to say about this topic. I suggest you check out the 'psychological properties of color', if you want to dive deeper into it.
      One more thing: the effects colors have on us are widely used in marketing; every brand that cares even a little bit for its appearance/impact, chooses its colors carefully. That's how strong different hues communicate a certain message.
      (18 votes)
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Samantha
    Can color trigger a memory or bring on more emotions at the background colors?
    (4 votes)
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    • old spice man green style avatar for user Marigail Usana
      Yes, absolutely, but not all the time. This is because colors are a part of our life and it depends on the person itself. Like their experiences and the feelings that they've felt from those. Also, it depends on how you perceive "color". Some might see it as something that is "just there" while some may think of it as having "a meaning", like remembering your best friend when his/her favorite color is mentioned. ;)
      (5 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Anusha Sridharan
    How does color blindness affect the perception of a color?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby blue style avatar for user JujuArt
    Technically speaking, color is the wavelengths of light that an object reflects, and that bounces into our eye. An apple is red because it is absorbing all other wavelengths (colors) of light and reflecting only red. White is reflecting all colors, and black is absorbing all colors. :)
    (5 votes)
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  • ohnoes default style avatar for user Van Nguyen
    at she explains the term "value"? i still didn't quite get it. Can anybody give me a more specific example?
    (4 votes)
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  • winston default style avatar for user lapettitt
    At , would there be more qualities that you could describe color with? Or are those the main ways to describe color?
    (1 vote)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user dustytubbs
      It is easier to describe a specific color than it is to attempt to describe what is "color". Color is nothing more than how a person perceives the light waves that enters their eye.

      Total lack of light is black and white is the opposite end of the color spectrum. In between these two are all of the shades of colors that are produced by the different frequencies of the light waves.

      The scientific definition of color is: the quality of an object or substance with respect to light reflected by the object, usually determined visually by measurement of hue, saturation, and brightness of the reflected light.

      The three primary colors are: Red, Yellow, and Blue. These are the only colors that cannot be created by mixing other colors together. (In the digital world they are called Yellow, Magenta and Cyan. The colors that are used in a color printer.)
      (8 votes)
  • duskpin seed style avatar for user Daniel Miller
    Who came up with the names of all of the colors?
    (4 votes)
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  • aqualine seed style avatar for user karl.farmer
    How do we actually get colour? It is a fascinating subject to explore and has intrigued me for years.
    (3 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user The Babbler
      When light hits a object,most,but not all, of its rays get absorbed. Thus,what we think is the color of something is the only color it's not. Black is the lack of color. Black means all of the color is absorbed.This is also why black holes seen black.The gravity is so strong that it sucks in all light.No light is reflected.White means all of the light is reflected. Hope this helped! :)
      (3 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user gbd1
    cool, never exactly realized color was such an in depth sort of thing, but in my opinion color is energy.
    (3 votes)
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Video transcript

(chiming music) - What do I think color is? (laughing) What is color? (gentle cheerful music) - (laughing) I can't answer that question. - (laughing) What is color? Color is a sensation. (chiming) - Color is a very personal thing. Color is very subjective. It can trigger like a visceral response. Like if you smell bacon, ah, bacon. You know, it's like if you see certain kinds of colors, the same exact feeling. - I don't know. Ask some smart person here. Pick-- (laughing) - Color is a term that we use to describe a collection of attributes, hue and saturation and value, that describes how we see things. Hue is what the actual color is in the rainbow spectrum. Is it more yellow, or is it more orange? Bluer or redder? Value is how bright something is relative to something else. Is it white? Is it black? Is it some sort of middle grey? Saturation is how intense the color is? Is it more subdued and grey, or is it more vibrant, almost fluorescence, you know? A fully saturated color is quite eye popping. (electricity crackling) Color is everything to artists. - It wasn't until I started working at Pixar that I think I had to think about color in a different way, to apply it to a narrative and it can mean something. - On Up, there was a scene where Carl's house got burned by Muntz. It's really one of the lowest points of the film, and it's this sunrise. Normally sunrises are very beautiful. It's the start of a new day, but for this one, we wanted an angry sunrise. It was just this beautiful tone of red that was so dramatic for me. I think that was really cool. - Because the choice of color is so critical to the story telling process, it's really important that we understand the science of the choosing of those colors. The first thing to realize about color is that color is really made up of light. Light comprises different wavelengths of energy, and when that energy comes through our pupil onto our retina inside our eye, it becomes nerve impulses, signals, and eventually gets processed by the brain. So the light is out in the real world. The color only really exists inside your brain when you perceive it. (fireworks popping) In the rest of this lesson, we're gonna dive more into the science and perception of color. Let's go.