Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Colour Management => Topic started by: LenR on February 27, 2014, 12:23:45 pm

Title: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: LenR on February 27, 2014, 12:23:45 pm
Does anyone here know who wrote "The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors"?
Just curious:)
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Shutterbug2006 on April 06, 2014, 01:26:15 pm
Never heard of it - Google was no help.

As I understand the laws of colors;

Of all the colors in the universe, only three are pure. Red, Blue and Yellow.
They cannot be made by mixing any other colors.
Secondary colors are created by mixing two primary colors.
Tertiary colors are by mixing a primary color with a secondary color.
Tone defines the value of color as warm or cool.
Level describes the intensity of the color from dark (level 1) to light (level 10).

That's six. What are the other three?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Jim Kasson on April 06, 2014, 02:22:55 pm
As I understand the laws of colors;

Of all the colors in the universe, only three are pure. Red, Blue and Yellow.
They cannot be made by mixing any other colors.

I think those two are indeed refutable.

Primary colors are a choice, not something handed down as physical laws. Additive color systems, such as those that mix light to produce intermediate colors, need three or more primaries to provide a non-trivial gamut, but the choice of those colors is made by the system designer. When using three colors, they are usually a red, a green (not yellow) and a blue, but the exact characteristics of each of the three colors varies from system to system.

In subtractive color systems, such as those used in printing, again, three or more primaries are needed, but in this case, it's usually more. The standard set of printing primaries is cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. There are many different choices for each of these. In modern printers, these primaries are often supplemented by different colors with the objective of increasing gamut: Epson uses green and orange, for example.

Mixing pigmented paints is more complicated, and has aspects of both additive and subtractive color, with some of its own peculiarities thrown in.

In additive color systems, any non-spectral color. including one or more of the primaries, can be created by mixing two other colors chosen from the gamut of all visible colors.

Color is complicated, and is not easily boiled down to simple "laws."

Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Simon Garrett on April 06, 2014, 03:26:03 pm
Color is complicated, and is not easily boiled down to simple "laws."

In fact, I'd say that the only irrefutable law of colour is that there is no irrefutable law of colour.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 06, 2014, 04:12:57 pm
Color, is a perceptual property. So if you can't see it it's not a color. Color is not a particular wavelength of light. It is a cognitive perception. The excitation of photoreceptors followed by retinal processing and ending in the our visual cortex, within our brains. As such, colors are defined based on perceptual experiments.

A coordinate in a "colorspace" outside the spectrum locus is not a color. We often refer to these as "imaginary colors" but this is by and large also wrong as you can't map an imaginary color from one colorspace to another as the math (and experimental data) for each colorspace breaks down outside the spectrum locus.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Jim Kasson on April 06, 2014, 04:38:07 pm
A coordinate in a "colorspace" outside the spectrum locus is not a color. We often refer to these as "imaginary colors" but this is by and large also wrong as you can't map an imaginary color from one colorspace to another as the math (and experimental data) for each colorspace breaks down outside the spectrum locus.

I agree wholeheartedly. And I guess that means that I should fess up to being tautological when I said "visible colors.'

Jim
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on April 07, 2014, 05:04:05 am
I agree wholeheartedly. And I guess that means that I should fess up to being tautological when I said "visible colors.'

Hi Jim,

Not really tautological. What's visible may be somewhat different between humans, and different animal species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#In_other_animal_species) ...

Besides, out-of-gamut 'colors' can still be used for calculations or color space conversions. What's OOG in one color space, may be in gamut for another color space.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: LenR on April 07, 2014, 10:09:56 am
You are all very wise regarding color, however the Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors are humorous (but irrefutable none the less) written by a color sage before the ICC was formed and before the WWW (internet).
As a digital photographer I was relatively alone in an industry controlled by printers and service bureaus.
At the time, @1990 we were all (clients and suppliers) connected thru BBS's through which files and ideas were exchanged.  
In the abscense of Color Management the way we converted our RGB files to CMYK was to contact the press and find out:
1) their "Start point for Cyan"
2) their "Max K"
3) their "Total Ink"
This was a "by the numbers" reliable method to create cmyk files tailored to specific press conditions .
We had a lot to deal with that was new and outside of the box but our clients didn't have a clue of what went in to what we did.

The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors are written with those clients in mind:)



Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: PeterAit on April 07, 2014, 10:50:26 am
Color is a subjective construct of the human perceptual system. Frequency is an objective characteristic of photons. If you ever doubt that color is subjective, you are invited to hear my wife and I have one if our "it's blue, no it's green"  discussions!
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Farmer on April 07, 2014, 04:40:19 pm
Maybe she's a tetrachromat?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Alan Klein on April 08, 2014, 01:11:19 am
How would you describe the color purple to a blind person?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Farmer on April 08, 2014, 04:58:24 pm
You would have to interpret based on their paradigm.  So you'd have to think about temperature, texture, pitch, volume and so on.  The key word in all of that is interpret, because it's all subjective.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: WombatHorror on April 10, 2014, 09:59:06 pm
Never heard of it - Google was no help.

As I understand the laws of colors;

Of all the colors in the universe, only three are pure. Red, Blue and Yellow.
They cannot be made by mixing any other colors.

No since there is no logic to say one frequency of photons is more pure than another.
Color is perception and it varies by species and even within species.
For a typical human, it's more or less a tristimulus model so you can use three primaries. For additive (light sources) red, blue, green are the basic primaries. For subtractive scenarios like drawing with crayons it's different three.

Things are a bit trickier though and to avoid metamerism issues you really need to stick to using full spectral outputs and not stick to tri-stim color-management.

Everyone has things tuned a touch differently in their eyes, some radically so (some women are more like 4-color (fairly rare) and some guys are more like only 2-color (not that rare), most males and females are 3-color).

The weird thing about colors is that you can't really describe them in the end. How could a 4-chromat get across what they see to a 3 or 2? How could you ever explain to a red-green colorblind 2-chromat guy how you see colors)? How can you image what some bug that seems a lot of UV sees things like. How do you describe to a blind person what red looks like. Heck how do I even know that what I think of as red is even what you think of it even if we are both 3-color, it's pretty weird. It's the weird thing about any sense. If someone can't sense hot or cold how do you describe what they feel like? You can provide spectrum information and kinectic motion and such but I don't know how you explain what they look or feel like in the perceptual sense.


Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Nigel Johnson on April 21, 2014, 06:28:31 pm
LenR,

Can you please tell us what the 'Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors' are? Like others I have tried to find them on the internet without success.

Regards,
Nigel
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on April 22, 2014, 07:58:38 am
Is this not a properties of light thing.

I was taught what I seem to remember as the 9 properties of light at some point.

Light travels in straight lines.
Light can be reflected.
Light can be absorbed.
Light can be refracted
Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.
Light can be dispersed

That type of thing.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Jim Pascoe on April 23, 2014, 09:53:15 am
Is this not a properties of light thing.

I was taught what I seem to remember as the 9 properties of light at some point.

Light travels in straight lines.
Light can be reflected.
Light can be absorbed.
Light can be refracted
Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.
Light can be dispersed

That type of thing.

That's only six - and no mention of colour either.  It would have been most simple if the OP could have just posted the Nine Rules.  A bit like talking about the Ten Commandments to an atheist without telling them what they are...! :)

Maybe it's more like pink for girls, blue for boys, black for witches, white for virgins..... I think I'll stop there.

Jim
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 10:42:29 am
That's only six - and no mention of colour either. 
Exactly, good catch! Those are properties of light. No mention of color for good reason.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 10:43:32 am
A bit like talking about the Ten Commandments to an atheist without telling them what they are...! :)

Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac that stayed awake all night wondering if Dog really exists?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 23, 2014, 02:47:44 pm
Good thing I couldn't understand a thing of the impossible-to-define-colors blabbering of our esteemed nerds... after all, all those words are just a bunch of photons hitting my retina... who could make a sense of it? And bumblebees could not possibly fly, according to equally esteemed aeronautical engineers.  ;)
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Jim Kasson on April 23, 2014, 03:01:54 pm
Good thing I couldn't understand a thing of the impossible-to-define-colors blabbering of our esteemed nerds... after all, all those words are just a bunch of photons hitting my retina... who could make a sense of it? And bumblebees could not possibly fly, according to equally esteemed aeronautical engineers.  ;)

http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp

Jim
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 03:04:38 pm
http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp
I guess that equally esteemed aeronautical engineer isn't so esteemed. That much is easily understood should one try.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 23, 2014, 04:00:21 pm
Oh. please! Obviously, as the science progresses, previously unexplainable things become explained. However, there WAS a reason for what is now considered debunked to exist initially, as evidenced in the links you guys provided.

I am just making a parallel to an equally absurd claims that colors are impossible to define. Ask 90-99 percent of humanity and they'll tell you sky is blue, grass is green, etc.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 04:07:51 pm
I am just making a parallel to an equally absurd claims that colors are impossible to define. Ask 90-99 percent of humanity and they'll tell you sky is blue, grass is green, etc.
And they would be wrong! You're using English words to define a sensation that takes place deep in our brains.
Ask a blind person to define 'Blue'.
Again, you can believe color is a wavelength of light and ignore all the processes that make us see and understand what 'blue' is but that's simply not the full reality. Any more than bumblebees can't fly. Saying all those words are just a bunch of photons hitting my retina dismisses what's really going on and if you wish to dismiss the science of the reality to make everything simplistic, then you're being a simpleton.
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Good thing I couldn't understand a thing of the impossible-to-define-colors blabbering of our esteemed nerds.
If there is something I personally wrote about color you don't understand, ask. If there's something about color someone else wrote you don't understand ask. As Jim correctly pointed out, there was nothing in the 6 examples below that have anything to do with color. Light yes. Light isn't the only factor that produces the sensation we understand as color although it's vastly important. We define colors based on perceptual experiments.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 23, 2014, 04:44:56 pm
... Ask a blind person to define 'Blue'....

So, 90-99% of humanity is blind? So, because a small subset of humanity can not define colors, nobody can?

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... if you wish to dismiss the science of the reality to make everything simplistic...

I do not wish to dismiss science, just to place it where it belongs. I do not need science to explain to me why I am burning my hands if I put them in fire. I do not need science to explain to me that what I see as blue is not, but just a bunch of frequencies, blah, blah, blah. All I need is to share a common human consensus, reached millennia ago without science, that sky is blue. I might find it fascinating to read about a scientific explanation as to why it appears so, but that is an entirely different matter.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 05:00:03 pm
So, 90-99% of humanity is blind? So, because a small subset of humanity can not define colors, nobody can?
No but good job misundertanding the points about color I and WombatHorror have tried to express. Again, color is very complex. Suggesting the word "blue" can describe what we see of the sky is simply incorrect. I've stated twice that color as we understand it is based on perceptual experiments. In the context of imaging and numbers, we can define color numbers we can't see, they are not colors.
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I do not need science to explain to me why I am burning my hands if I put them in fire. I do not need science to explain to me that what I see as blue is not, but just a bunch of frequencies, blah, blah, blah.
It's the blah part that indicates you have no interest in understanding what's really going on. If so, I suggest you move on. I'm no more interested in discussing time with someone who believes the Earth is 6000 years old as I'm interested in discussing color with someone who thinks calling something 'blue' means it defines the process in which we humans perceive a sensation that's complex and takes place in many areas of our eyes and brains. Ask someone who's blue-green color blind what blue looks like then tell me that just calling something blue means anything within the context of human vision. Again, if blah, blah, blah  means you don't understand what some are writing, either ask for clarification or admit you don't have the time or mental energies to understand the topic. I didn't think we were dealing with children here but blah, blah, blah sure sounds like infant speak at this point!
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 23, 2014, 05:52:30 pm
... admit you don't have the time or mental energies to understand the topic...

I have both, but have no desire to spend them on your "scientific" terrorism. You are engaged in what is known from Greek times as sophism, using "logic" (in your case "science") to defy the obvious, just like they "proved" a hare can not possibly outrun a tortoise if the latter has a head start.

If I ask you for the nearest gas station, as I am running out of gas, I really, really do not want to hear from you about chemical properties of gas at the molecular level. There is a fantastic amount of science and engineering in today's cars for instance, yet I do not NEED to know any of that in order to drive it. Especially do not need to hear that the car I drive is not actually a car, but just a bunch of atoms, frequencies, blah, blah, blah...
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 06:02:42 pm
I have both, but have no desire to spend them on your "scientific" terrorism.
Then move on. Considering your first post here was:Good thing I couldn't understand a thing of the impossible-to-define-colors blabbering of our esteemed nerds... that seems to admit you're lost and has no positive bering on the topic, why are you here?

Look, if you have something valuable to share, do so. Otherwise, what are we supposed to make of your first post here and what appears to be an admission of being lost and adding blah to a large part of your text?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: WombatHorror on April 23, 2014, 06:52:06 pm

Light travels in straight lines.


except when it doesn't  ;D
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 23, 2014, 08:58:36 pm
Light follows the geodesics of spacetime, which might not always be straight lines in the classical sense
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 23, 2014, 09:03:32 pm
Light follows the geodesics of spacetime, which might not always be straight lines in the classical sense
Careful there, you're getting into blah blah territory  :o
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: MarkM on April 24, 2014, 02:30:06 pm
Ask 90-99 percent of humanity and they'll tell you sky is blue, grass is green, etc

All I need is to share a common human consensus, reached millennia ago without science, that sky is blue.

It's actually not true. The way the spectrum is divided lexically, i.e. the word categories that are used for sections of the spectrum are different across cultures. Famously (in some circles) the New Guinea speakers of the Dani language only have two color terms: mili (black, blues, and greens) and mola (white, reds and yellows.) Other cultures have different numbers of terms. Paul Kay and Bret Berlin wrote extensively about the way cultures carve up the color wheel in their 1969 book Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution) Many more have followed — it's a well-discussed topic.

Since you specifically cited the color of the sky and the color of grass, I should mention that the distinction between blue and green is especially interesting. Vietnamese, for example has one word, xanh, that encompasses both green and blue. They will tell you that the sky is xanh and that the grass is xanh. Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive discussion about the lexical categories surrounding blue and green here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 24, 2014, 02:37:34 pm
I am just making a parallel to an equally absurd claims that colors are impossible to define.
No such parallel or claims I can find anywhere on this thread.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 24, 2014, 02:44:10 pm
Mark, both you and I know that EVERY generalization is wrong to some extent. Yet they serve the purpose. We both also know that exceptions prove the rule. That is why I did not say 100% of humanity, but gave a guesstimate 90-99%. Some people seem hellbent to use exceptions do disprove the rule. We can argue if 90% is the right bracket, but even if it is 51%, it still means majority. Shall we, for instance, gauge human understanding of the world by some Amazon tribes who have never seen outside world?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 24, 2014, 02:47:33 pm
Mark, both you and I know that EVERY generalization is wrong to some extent. Yet they serve the purpose. We both also know that exceptions prove the rule. That is why I did not say 100% of humanity, but gave a guesstimate 90-99%. Some people seem hellbent to use exceptions do disprove the rule. We can argue if 90% is the right bracket, but even if it is 51%, it still means majority. Shall we, for instance, gauge human understanding of the world by some Amazon tribes who have never seen outside world?

Just a big pile of "Generalization" terrorism.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: MarkM on April 24, 2014, 02:54:49 pm
This isn't a case of finding some fringe exception to a generalization. It's evidence (and there's lots of it) that the generalization is dead wrong. We don't all agree what color the sky is and what color the grass — color is an artifact that doesn't have a reality outside our own heads. Because of this it is susceptible to many cultural biases that we mistake for universal facts leading us to think that 99% of the word agrees with us. In the context of this thread it is a further example of how misguided it is to talk about irrefutable laws and color in the same sentence.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 24, 2014, 03:03:39 pm
Slobodan, I’m generally very open to reading your posts but whatever you’ve smoked or eaten recently is affecting you and in not a good way.

You came late into the thread with an admission of not understanding some posts about color. The admission of this in your writing is as clear as the nose on your face. Then you say you do understand it and come up with some term about terrorism in a snooty way and attribute multiple “blah's” to other’s writings. You write about absurd claims concerning impossible to define colors that do not exist anywhere in the post. You make extravagant claims about a huge number of people and how they communicate and perceive color using English words. You having a bad week?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 24, 2014, 03:07:12 pm
This isn't a case of finding some fringe exception to a generalization...

If tribes in Papua New Guinea are not "some fringe exception" than I do not know what is. If you show me that at least 51% of the Earth population can not actually define sky as blue, I would stand corrected and the generalization would be "dead wrong."

When we say "we", we also tend to rely on conventions, and use the word "we" to mean "people similar to us," and, in our case, it means the Western world, or Western civilization. Bringing tribes lost in history into a debate on a photographic forum in the Western world does not make much sense.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be said on the Internet (or else) that someone, somewhere won't disagree with or find an exception to.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: MarkM on April 24, 2014, 03:28:03 pm
It's not just the Dani speakers — it's the Japanese, many Turkik languages, Vietnamese, Korean, and others. I don't know the percentage, but that's not the point. My point is that the idea behind the generalization is wrong. Your argument seems to be that because you know what color the sky is and many people agree with you, you have therefore created a definition of color. But, whatever percentage of the population agrees with your color categories will be a result of demographics, not some truth about color. You have said it's absurd to claim that colors are impossible to define and I am saying that whatever definition you assert regarding color is a statement about your language and culture more than statement about color. 

And it's not just cultural relativism. Color is also highly dependable on context. So you can point to the sky and proudly call it blue, but I can show you that exact same color (as defined by it's spectrum) in a different context and you will tell me it's gray. Which leaves an additional problem when defining color: do you define color with spectral measurements or perception? A lot of problems go away if you just define color by its spectral characteristics — it's easy to measure, easy to define — but it has a fatal flaw in that the same 'color' will be a different color in different contexts. You can call all this blah blah mumbo jumbo if you want, but that's just avoiding a real problem with real practical consequences for no apparent reason other than it's a little difficult.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 24, 2014, 04:00:08 pm
Slobodan, I’m generally very open to reading your posts but whatever you’ve smoked or eaten recently is affecting you and in not a good way.

You came late into the thread with an admission of not understanding some posts about color...

My "admission" was sarcasm, Andrew, and you should know it by now if you read my posts regularly. I have enormous respect for science in general, and YOUR personal contribution to color science. I wasn't mocking either. What I was trying to point out, in a humorous (sarcastic) way, is that there is a time and place for complex scientific debates, and this forum and this particular thread, isn't.

This thread started by someone asking about The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors, and then the OP explained that it was a humorous take on the world of color "before the ICC was formed and before the WWW (internet)." But humor and geeks do not mix well, apparently (other than geeks becoming a target for humor).

About my "absurd claim" (concerning "colors impossible to define") that "does not exist anywhere in the post":

... The weird thing about colors is that you can't really describe them in the end...

Then someone pointed out what painters [at least those "before the ICC was formed and before the WWW (internet)"] have known for millennia, i.e., about three primary colors (red, blue, yellow), and all those color wheels display as such to this day, and you guys shot him down with "there are no primary colors."

This is why I argue with you at al... you use scientific complexity to muddy the waters for what is obvious to common people in everyday use. You are trying to shatter commonly accepted conventions, which, however imprecise, have served its purpose for the vast majority of us quite well so far.

Yes, words and how we use them are often language and culture specific. We, common people, say "love" and geeks say "it is just neurons firing in the brain" (I am improvising here), thus impossible to define. And yet love exists, however difficult to define it is. The same goes for beauty. Or pornography. Or color for that matter. Yes, it is cultural, yes, it is subjective, yes, it is context-specific, yes, it is hard to define. Yet you know it when you see it (literally and figuratively).
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 24, 2014, 04:09:45 pm
My "admission" was sarcasm, Andrew, and you should know it by now if you read my posts regularly.
So what you're writing is also sarcasm?
Quote
I wasn't mocking either.
Well you fooled me with all the blah's! At the very least, ad a  ;D
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What I was trying to point out, in a humorous (sarcastic) way, is that there is a time and place for complex scientific debates, and this forum and this particular thread, isn't.
Why not?
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About my "absurd claim" (concerning "colors impossible to define") that "does not exist anywhere in the post":
Then someone pointed out what painters [at least those "before the ICC was formed and before the WWW (internet)"] have known for millennia, i.e., about three primary colors (red, blue, yellow), and all those color wheels display as such to this day, and you guys shot him down with "there are no primary colors."
You guys? Seems to have come way out of left field but whatever....
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This is why I argue with you at al... you use scientific complexity to muddy the waters for what is obvious to common people in everyday use.
Muddy? Sorry, I was trying to be accurate in terms of the use of color. Again, if something I or someone else is unclear (muddy), ask for clarification. The Blah's and comments about scientific terrorism just come across as rather nasty. Hence my question about you having a bad week. Because as far as I can tell, everything was going rather smoothly until you posted.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 24, 2014, 04:13:24 pm
So what you're writing is also sarcasm?...

It is context-specific, Andrew!  :P
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 24, 2014, 06:03:49 pm

This is why I argue with you at al... you use scientific complexity to muddy the waters for what is obvious to common people in everyday use. You are trying to shatter commonly accepted conventions, which, however imprecise, have served its purpose for the vast majority of us quite well so far.


Maybe the issue is using scientific complexity instead of easy to understand language, but if "commonly accepted conventions" are wrong, then I welcome every effort to shatter them, otherwise we would still be thinking that the earth is flat and the sun goes around the earth.

Regarding the sky, I guess I'm part of that 1%, since I have seen it in almost every imaginable color. The "blue sky" reminded me of the recommendations included in color films: "from two hours after sunrise until two hours before sunset"
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 24, 2014, 06:31:14 pm
Wow, Francisco, that is so smart... and cute... in a kindergarten kind of way!
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 24, 2014, 06:59:46 pm
Wow, Francisco, that is so smart... and cute... in a kindergarten kind of way!
You really do seem to be having a bad week.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: fdisilvestro on April 24, 2014, 08:15:58 pm
Wow, Francisco, that is so smart... and cute... in a kindergarten kind of way!

I was tempted to respond with a nasty comment, but I agree with Andrew, you seem to be having a bad week.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Farmer on April 25, 2014, 06:07:54 am
Slobodan - ask a colour-blind person what blue looks like and then tell me it's a constant.

You've got people patiently (and not so) explaining to you that you're wrong.  That's a fact - you ARE wrong.  Get over it, learn something, move on.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 25, 2014, 11:00:32 am
Hi Phil - since I never said a color is "a constant" (whatever that means), what exactly I am wrong about? Other than arguing about anything non-literal with geeks, that is ;)

Which is as foolish as arguing with Kardashians about... well, pretty much anything ;D

There you go, I even included smileys - two to be literal - for all those humor-challanged.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 25, 2014, 11:10:44 am
Smileys are useful when we are not supposed to take you seriously. The Kardashians bit is therefore not to be debated expect if one wants to unnecessary argue it is or isn't funny.

Facts about color perception being dismissed, while using English words in an attempt to suggest they means the same thing to all humans when what is occurring is a complex process deep within our brains is neither funny or correct as several people here have attempted to point out. This IS after all the color management forum, not the The Coffee Corner! You stated:What I was trying to point out, in a humorous (sarcastic) way, is that there is a time and place for complex scientific debates, and this forum and this particular thread, isn't. to which I say Bullshite! Add all the smileys you wish, what you are stating is incorrect. I'm sorry you're still in such a piss-poor mood about this and more than once I suggested you move on. Take it to the Coffee Corner and add as many smileys and jokes as you wish about color but in this forum, what you're stating is simply flat earth nonsense and that's why you've been called out by numerous posters. Does that POV make any sense to you in the context of this forum, the topic, and what other's have written?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 25, 2014, 11:49:01 am
... Facts about color perception being dismissed, while using English words in an attempt to suggest they means the same thing to all humans...

No, I did not dismiss that color is a perception. Nor I said "all" humans. Nor it is a matter of just English. Many other languages contain the same words for colors, at least in the Western world. So, how is it then possible that, given it is a perception, so many people have the same perception?
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 25, 2014, 12:31:06 pm
No, I did not dismiss that color is a perception. Nor I said "all" humans. Nor it is a matter of just English. Many other languages contain the same words for colors, at least in the Western world. So, how is it then possible that, given it is a perception, so many people have the same perception?
You can't dismiss that color is a perception. That perception has nothing to do with the English word "blue". And outside the western world, the cognitive perception is the same or different because they use different words to define their perception? The answer should be rather obvious. Mark explained the difference in languages used to speak of color, but you can call what you perceive of the sky "poop" or "Bacon" and it's just a word in whatever language you want to define and has nothing to do with what's happening inside our brains when we look at the sky. And you do not know how many people have this or that perception, you're guessing again as it was pointed out that we define color with perceptual experiments. And your study on that subject as far as I know is is yet unpublished right? Agreed, you didn't say all humans, just a huge percentage which again isn't correct.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 25, 2014, 12:52:16 pm
I admit. I was WRONG. To argue with geeks about non-literal. Or Kardashians. Over and out.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 25, 2014, 01:18:23 pm
I admit. I was WRONG. To argue with geeks about non-literal. Or Kardashians. Over and out.
Personally I think you were right about Kardashians. The rest, not so much.  :-\
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Farmer on April 26, 2014, 06:52:25 am
You want to argue that we're ignoring language and don't know anything about it, because we're too literal?

Let me give you some light reading:

http://www.slideshare.net/berettag/understanding-color-2010

http://www.mostlycolor.ch/2013/04/color-naming-65274705768-pixels.html

http://www.mostlycolor.ch/2010/12/fun-with-collocates-orange-vodka-to.html

http://www.mostlycolor.ch/2012/07/colorful-language-results.html

http://www.mostlycolor.ch/2011/08/colorful-language.html
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on April 26, 2014, 08:39:37 am
Smileys are useful when we are not supposed to take you seriously.

Hi Andrew,

Really, honestly, what's wrong with you lately? You have started using an ad hominem style of response to react to certain posters, and honestly do a poor job at arguing sensibly (assuming you want to discuss, instead of just being condescending/patronizing). You attribute certain remarks to people that they never made, or seem to deliberately (?) (mis)interpret what they say when they never said or intended it? You are not doing yourself a favor if you carry on like that.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: digitaldog on April 26, 2014, 10:56:01 am
You attribute certain remarks to people that they never made, or seem to deliberately (?) (mis)interpret what they say when they never said or intended it?
Examples? Assuming you think this is the place to bring this up.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: FMueller on April 26, 2014, 02:32:35 pm
It is so nice to see a bloodletting discussion that manages to not fall into politics.  ;D
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on April 26, 2014, 07:02:13 pm
You want to argue that we're ignoring language and don't know anything about it, because we're too literal?

Let me give you some light reading:...

I know I said "over and out," and now I am back, so let's just assume it refereed to a particular style of debate, i.e., humorous arguing (or simply being a "nasty simpleton," depending on your perception).

Therefore, I will try to remain serious for the rest of the debate. But before we continue, let me just say that I never said my opponents are "ignoring language and don't know anything about it."

Whenever someone throws a book at me in a forum debate, without stating his point, I am puzzled. Especially links to 150 and 250 pages books. Am I supposed to read it all or publish a research paper on the subject in order to qualify for the debate? So, Phil, I do not know what your point is and do not want to speculate on your behalf. But feel free to state it yourself.

I did skim through the 150-page one though. And guess what I found:

In a survey of 36 different nationalities, speaking 26 different languages (including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese), when asked "What would you call this color?," between 85-90 % responded with a single word "blue." Now add to that those who used a variant of "blue" in their answer (e.g., "bright blue", etc.) and the percentage gets into the 90-99 % territory.

So, where exactly was I wrong?




Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: MarkM on April 26, 2014, 11:08:42 pm
Slobodan,

I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting with your post. If the study you referenced was a sample representing how the world's cultures named colors, would you really expect that 90% would answer with the English word 'blue'?

From the section on demographics:

"…this project is about colour naming in English…
…all of the respondents appeared to be fluent enough in English to complete the survey…"

It's an interesting study, but it might be worth taking a deeper skim to understand what she's doing and what it means.

Here's the link to the study for anyone who isn't sure where this comes from: http://eleanormaclure.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/survey-report.pdf
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Schewe on April 26, 2014, 11:13:18 pm
Wait...are you guys still flailing away at each other? Don't you all see the futility in continuing this thread? Maybe the OP should do the honors and lock this thread (if they had any decency).

I keep checking the thread just to see the bodies along the side of the road...sorry, but I can't help myself from looking at crashes (and this is a full fledged multi-vehicle crash).
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Farmer on April 27, 2014, 02:44:40 am
Don't skim, Slobodan, read it.  If you have any interest in the subject, it's very bloody interesting material.  It confirms that it's all subjective and it confirms the way in which different cultures and societies influence their members and also how colour references change over time.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: papa v2.0 on April 27, 2014, 06:17:13 pm
Hi

Here is the colour naming experiment by a friend of mine from the LCC

http://colournaming.com/terms/

Iain
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: BenMm on May 01, 2014, 01:52:16 pm
I am coming very late into this discussion but I thought you all might enjoy this diagram that relates to color perception:

Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Rainer SLP on May 01, 2014, 06:09:37 pm
Hi

Here is the colour naming experiment by a friend of mine from the LCC

http://colournaming.com/terms/

Iain

Interesting test. I filled it out :-)
Title: The First Irrefutable Law of Color
Post by: LenR on May 02, 2014, 07:21:15 am
OK, simmer down now.  

Maybe the first law will bring some lightness to the conversation.  

Remember I didn't write these and my original post was an attempt to reach out to other old timers that may remember who created them.


The First Irrefutable Law of Color is..........

[Drum-roll please]


1)Everyone sees something different.
Title: Re: The Nine Irrefutable Laws of Colors
Post by: Rainer SLP on May 02, 2014, 11:28:17 am
More fuel for this discussion,  ;D

Why do we see the Sun white when looking at it if it has his highest intensity in the green ¿? So I can say for sure that the Sun is a green star   ::)

Why do we have in the Bayer matrix 2 G Filter when there is the highest intesity of the Sunshine ¿?

Red line is the spectrum taken by me and the blue line is a professional calibration spectrum

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D