Colour Theory

Colour theory in basic consists of how to use colour properly and recognising the property of colours on their own and in relation to others. So I've set out to find and read a variety of articles on colour theory and put them into one place.

• The basics of colour theory
  
• Colour Theory on landscape photography by Michael Reichmann
  
• Basic colour schemes - Contains a more in-depth look into colour harmony.
  
• Colour theory for designers by Cameron Chapman
  
• Colour theory for artists from ImagineFX
  
• In-depth website on colour by David Briggs
  
• A good colour theory wheel

Purple

Even a purple frog!

I dedicate this post to my favourite colour purple!

There are several interesting facts about this colour. Such as during the times of Elizabethan clothing the people that were allowed to wear the colour purple was dictated by English law known as sumptuary law. Colours that people wore would inform others of their status, not just in wealth but also their social standing.

Where does the name and colour of purple originate?
It comes from a dye made from the mucus glands of a tropical sea snail. This discovery is associated with the legend of the God Heracles, a guardian deity. It is said that his dog bit the
snail and immediately its mouth turned purple. His companion a nymph named Tyrus, demanded that he dye her clothes this colour otherwise she would not sleep with him. And so the Tyrian purple dye was created.

Purple LandThe Greeks even went on to refer to the land of Tyre as "purple land" . It required 250,000 shellfish to produce one ounce of purple. In time it came to be worth more than gold.

Purple is associated with royalty, wealth and power, but why?
This can be traced back as far as the Greeks and Romans. Triumphant generals would wear robes of purple and gold whilst senators and consuls would wear togas with bands of purple. By the 4th century only the emporer was allowed to wear the best purple. They particularly liked a dark shade of purple which they described as "clotted blood".

In 1909 an austrian chemist assessed the chemical properties of the dye and realized it was almost the same as blue indigo extracted from an Indian plant called Indigofera tinctoria.

Even more surprising is that in 2007 a team of researchers concluded that early life may have been purple as plants used to use a different form of photosynthesis however the modern way prevailed, hence the reason that plants are now green instead of purple. This was more efficient.

How does 3D work?

With the recent buzz of 3D in cinemas I am curious to how it all works.

The illusion of 3D is quite a simple one and is only possible because we have two eyes, if we close one the illusion is broken. Our eyes are slightly apart and so they see from a slightly different angle each and because of this our eyes are able to create a sense of distance and depth which prevents us from seeing the world in 2D. Each eye sees 2D which is combined to create a 3D view.

The red and blue glasses use a kind of filtering system to our eyes. The screen displays two images and the glasses allow only one to enter each eye. Red/blue and red/green are the mainstream colours used for this effect. However this created bad image quality and so polarized is often preferred as it allows for colour images.

Polarization uses two projections of the same image with different polarization and the glasses only allow one projection into each eye.

As great as 3D can be I don't see what the whole sudden fuss about it is....like it's something new? It's been around for a long time but only now is it hyped about. So much so that the lion king has now been re-released as 3D in cinemas (not that I'm complaining as it was one of my favourite Disney films!). In my mind 4D should try and be incorporated into cinemas.....really get the audience into the movie by appealing to the other senses would be a big step forward in my opinion.

http://www.worldtvpc.com/blog/4d-technology-hits-south-korea/
This article gave me hope :D

The colour spectrum

The visible spectrum is the electromagnetic portion of the spectrum that is visible to the human eye. These colours are made up of different wavelengths and frequencies....so what is the rest of the spectrum that we don't see?

Some of the other lights that we don't see are infrared, radio waves, ultraviolet etc. The BBC recently did an interesting documentary highlighting this called Out of sight along with other interesting documentaries revealing that what we see can actually be very different from what is there.

A good example of how things can be different in different lighting is the honeybees. Honeybees have ultraviolet vision and so the world around them looks very different to our own. As a result of this flowers purposely have patterns that show through ultraviolet lighting in order to attract the bees to pollenate.In addition to this we also learnt through infrared that bees have a very specific set up within the hive. What initially looks like a scrambled mess is actually an organized process to raise the young. Under infrared light specific bees are shown to be warmer than others and these bees are keeping the young warm. Other bees will bring honey to feed and keep the energy levels of these bees up in order to stay warm. Something that would never be known without looking through infrared.

Apparently if all the invisible waves that we cant see were aligned along eachother they would go so far as to reach all the way to the sun! That's a lot of wave lengths! All around us are constant waves that we don't see, in particular radio waves as everyone these days have mobile phones.

Imagine all the light along this rainbow that we can't see....

Debate of colour in modern movies

In my search for research on colour in movies in modern times I've encountered an interesting debate and opinion that colour quality in movies has become worse. This was quite surprising as I was expecting that quality would have improved with recent technology, but as I read the articles I began to see the point and this is largely due to modern techniques of colour grading to create a specific feel to a movie.

http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html

This article in particular debates that hollywood movies now all consist of overall orange and blue tints compared to the bright colours of older movies. This apparently began in 2000 with the first scanned movie "Oh brother, Where art thou?" as seen above.

It began being used and introduced as teal and blue are complimentary colours and so this made the characters "pop" on screen.

http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/

This article takes this view even further showing many examples. I've noticed a feeling of movies all being the same recently but would never have put it down to something as simple as the colours used! This really surprised me and I'm sure I will now notice it everywhere.....unfortunately. However I'm sure this doesn't apply to absolutely all movies. Maybe this is another phase of Hollywood and another will soon come along.

This also reminds me of a similar thing I saw about modern music all being the same:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Denver Riddle responded with a blog post explaining the use of these colours
http://www.digitalcinemafoundry.com/2010/04/02/why-the-so-called-blockbuster-look-color-grading-explained/

Although it makes sense that these colours create a more appealing image, does it need to be so overused?

Colour in early movies

It is not known when the first full colour movie was created or which movie it was but it's known it was first introduced when hand cranked cine cameras were used.

Many methods were used since the introduction of three strip full colour in 1934 however colour in movies has been found to go back even as far as 1899, as seen to the left. From the image it is known that the camera used did not expose all the colours simultaneously as the moving people have artifacts whereas the ladders do not. This is why the early technicolor systems were so successful as the lenses manage to expose simultaneously.

There were a variety of methods such as:

• Hand Coloured films - This involved painting each individual frame, tinting film stock, toning black and white emulsion etc.
• Natural Colour films - Additive Colour - This method meant that the film did have its original colour whilst being filmed however being additive the colours were on a separate film and combined/overlapped with the original.
• Natural Colour Films - Subtractive Colour - This method has complimentary colours dyed into the emulsion, this way emits more light than additive.

As well as many other methods and types of film combinations used however technicolour and kinemacolour processes became the most popular.

Colour Therapy

Many ancient cultures used colour in practise as a therapy form, to heal, and some is even still used today as a holistic or alternative therapy. It is known as chromotherapy and sometimes referred to as light therapy or colorology.

In this treatment different colours were used to create different reactions:

• Red - Stimulate body and mind.
• Yellow - Stimate nerves and purify the body.
• Orange - Heal lungs and increase energy levels.
• Blue - Soothe illnesses and treat pain.
• Indigo - Was thought to help skin problems.

However most psychologists believe that the impact of colour is exaggerated and will have different meanings in all different cultures. Research has been carried out that has proved that the effects of colour are only temporary to the initial exposure of the colour and that overtime the effect can become neutral overtime or even reversed.

Further studies have also shown that colours can have an impact on performance. For example students exposed to the colour red before exams can have a negative impact on performance, however red has shown to increase reactions and speed which may be useful for athletes. Similarly interesting impacts of colour is the colour blue that causes loss of appetite and blue plates are now recommended as a part of diet plans.