Color Wheel - question

[RTK]

In the below link Gary writes about a color wheel feature in CorelDraw:

http://www.designer.com/focus/articl...or_wheel_1.htm

As far as I know, nothing like that is available in Xara X. Can you/how do you pick out two true (optically) complemetary colors manually?

Same for a true triadic colour scheme, can you create one manually somehow?

Can it be done mathematically?

Thanks!

Risto

[RTK]

In the below link Gary writes about a color wheel feature in CorelDraw:

http://www.designer.com/focus/articl...or_wheel_1.htm

As far as I know, nothing like that is available in Xara X. Can you/how do you pick out two true (optically) complemetary colors manually?

Same for a true triadic colour scheme, can you create one manually somehow?

Can it be done mathematically?

Thanks!

Risto

[jclements]

Try:
www.xaraxone.com > templates > Haromonious Colors
and
www.xaraxone.com > shareware > Art Enhancer

[RTK]

The wheel tutorial/template looks wrong/different from the way I have taught myself through watercolor/acrylic/oil painting books. I want to build the palette so that picking any color and pulling a straight line through the center of the circle will bring you to its compliment.

In any color wheel that I have ever seen (non PC...) Yellow would line up with Violet...

The little color CD wheel picture from Gary's article looks correct (just counter-clock wise from what I am used to).

Paints or PC shouldn't matter? - it is all about optics - no?

Perhaps I just can't understand the tutorial?

Help...

[Soquili]

Hi Risto,

I think the tutorial may be confusing because of the difference between a Pigment color wheel and a Light color wheel. I know that caused me some confusion when I studied photography after studying art.

In art class I learned the primary colors (actually pigments) are Red, Blue, and Yellow. However, in photography class I learned that the primary colors (actually light waves) are Red, Green, and Blue. My confusion was caused by the use of the term "color" in both instances.


The triads formed on the two different types of "color/colour" wheels aren't the same because of the differing primaries. This is why Yellow isn't opposite Violet in the "Light" color wheel.


The color wheel in the tutorial is a "Light" color wheel, and from your post, you are accustomed to using a "Pigment" color wheel. I still think using the "Pigment" color wheel and have to mentally shift to the "Light" color wheel when drawing on a computer.

No wonder my head hurts! All that shifting with my limited brain. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Hope this may help.

Soquili [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[This message was edited by Soquili on March 02, 2001 at 07:30 AM.]

[RTK]

I suspected it was something like that...

What you are saying about pigment color/light makes perfect sense.

I will try to find some more resources on the web about this or perhaps one of Gary's books deal with the Color wheel in detail?

I really would like to build up my own wheel- palette layout, so I need to find out how you pick out an excact triad/complement. If anyone knows how to do this - please post!

Thanks for pushing me in the right direction!

Two different wheels - two set of rules... *sigh*

Risto

[Erik Heyninck]

Hi Risto,

Not too much mathematics, just basics. A screen works with three bands of colour: a Red, Green and Blue "channel". In fact these channels are greyscale, and have 256 possible variations of brightness. (black at 0 to white at 255)(Should you be interested, I can give you the mathematical background).

So Red 255 (max value), Green 000 (min value) and Blue 000 gives RED. The same apllies for the other colours.

Red 255, Green 255 and Blue 000 gives YELLOW

Green 255, Blue 255 and Red 000 gives CYAN (a kind of phtalocyanine colour, Prussian Blue,...)

Blue 255, Red 255 and Green 000 gives MAGENTA

Lesser values causes the colours to darken and three times 000 gives BLACK.

All three at 255, maximum brightness, gives WHITE.


So when you want to invert colours, you invert the individual brightness values

255minus the original brightness value gives you the inverse brightness.

BLACK (0,0,0) turns to WHITE (255,255,255)
RED (255,0,0) turns to (0,255,255)= CYAN
Brownish red (100,0,0) is darker than red, and turns into (155,255,255), a lighter hue of some bluegreenwhite.

Hope this helps.

Practically speaking: Make patches, get Irfanview (free) and use the invert filter. Then copy to clipboard and paste on your wheel opposite to your initial colour.

[RTK]

OK, it is easy when you know how...

That is all I need!

Thanks again guys!

Risto

[ivan louette]

Hello risto,

from a long time I have the idea to send a post about how to create nice color associations in Xara X. If my cough leave me this week end i will do it.

Different kind of transparencies may be very helpful intermediates for this purpose (particularly Bleach, Hue, Contrast, Saturation).

Kind regards,

ivan

[smorg]

Here you go, Risto. Another "cheat" for the color wheel. This page has an extensive list of articles; scroll down and look for "The 36 Color Wheel, Interactive Real Color Wheel in Light and Pigment for Artists." I didn't click on all of the links, but you should have enough fun on your own, you won't hold it against me.

http://www.websitetips.com/color/index.html

Enjoy! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]