Mixing color pigments

Paints

In this sense, pigments reflect a mixture of colors. When paints or dyes are mixed, the mixture absorbs all the frequencies each paint or dye in it absorbs. Blue paint, for example, reflects mostly blue light, but also violet and green: it absorbs red, orange, and yellow light. Yellow paint reflects mostly yellow light, but also red, orange, andgreen it absorbs blue and violet light. When blue and yellow paints are mixed, then between them they absorb all the colors except green.

Paints and dyes contain finely divided solid particles of pi gment that produce their colors by absorbing light of certain frequenc es and reflecting light of other frequencies. Pigments absorb light of a relatively wide range of frequencies and reflect a wide range as well.

So when you cast lights on the stage at a school ay, you use the rules of color addition to produce various colors. But when you mix paint, you use the rules of color subtraction. You may have learned as a child that you can make any color with paints of three so-called pri- mary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Actually, the three paint or dye colors that are most useful in color mixing by subtraction are magenta (bluish red) yellow, and cyan (greenish blue), Magenta, yellow, and cyan are the subtractive primary colors, used in printing illustrations in full color.