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Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004.COLOR THEORY: NATURAL AND
SYNTHETIC
Photographic color theory is based on light and
specific colors of light in the visible spectrum,
which combine together to form what we call
white light. Color can be broken down further
into three elements: hue (the wavelength of color),
saturation (the intensity of color), and value (the
lightness or darkness of a color, sometimes also
referred to as brightness). These components
make up all photographic light. Black and white
photography records light based only on value or
brightness, and color photography records light
based on two color sets: the additive primaries
and the subtractive primaries. These sets are
groupings of color that register in the human eye
and on the surface of photographic materials.
These two color groupings, when mixed together,
make up all of the color combinations in photo-
graphic imaging.
The color wheel is made up of six colors, and red,
green, and blue are placed directly inverse of cyan,
magenta, and yellow. The additive primaries are
red, green, and blue (also called RGB colors), and
when mixed together form white light. The subtrac-
tive primaries are cyan (bluish-green), magenta
(purplish-pink), and yellow (also called CMY pri-
maries), and when mixed together form black or
the absence of light. The six colors in the photo-
graphic process create a color wheel with comple-
mentary pairs: blue and yellow, green and magenta,
and cyan and red. On the color wheel, a triangle is
created by both the RGB primaries and the CMY
primaries as they are spaced alternately in the six
color slots of the color wheel. Mixing the colors on
either side of that hue creates each color in the
wheel: for example, mixing green and blue creates
cyan. These three-color pairs are linked through all
traditional film and digital photographic processes.
Each set of three primaries can form all six colors,
and the additive primaries are used when taking a
picture and affect the film, while the subtractive
primaries are used for color printing. This is also
true in digital imaging: the RGB primaries are used
when reproducing color with light, such as a com-
puter screen or television. The CMY primaries are
used for printing with the addition of black.
Early color experimentation consisted of photo-
graphic material sensitive to red, green, and blue
light. Antoine and Louise Lumie`re invented the
Autochrome process in 1907, based on additive
color theory. They covered a glass plate with potato
starch grains sensitive to three layers of color: red-
orange, green, and violet. When light passed
through the glass, it was recorded on emulsion sen-
sitive to only the specific color of the potato starch
grain that the light passed through and its corre-
sponding wavelength. This created a color transpar-
ency, but the process was labor-intensive and
unstable. The subtractive color process was intro-
duced into film with the invention of the Koda-
chrome process in 1935, developed by Eastman
Kodak and Leopold Mannes. This process was
popular with professional photographers for adver-
tising and portraits, and rarely used by consumers
because of its technical sophistication and expense.
The consumer photographic market and fine art
photography relied heavily on black and white
film and developing until the 1970s, when color
film was significantly improved by manufacturers
such as Eastman Kodak and Fuji. Aesthetic photo-
graphic history also changes in the late 1960s asCOLOR TEMPERATURE