Basic knowledge of color theory (1)

I. Understanding color

How the color is formed has received attention from people since ancient times. Since the 1930s, color science with color as its research object has become a new application technology, which has attracted the attention of the scientific and technological communities and industry. In the surrounding environment of our lives, colors are almost ubiquitous around you, and colors have a close relationship with everyone, including food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education, music, etc., and colors are for everyone's emotions. There are also profound influences on emotion, personality and personality. So what is color? How does color come about? How does the object form color after being stimulated by light? What are the basic requirements for forming a color? Most people must be rather vague about such issues. The reason is that people have poor knowledge of color, and the color technology field includes mathematical, physical, chemical, physiological, and psychological sciences. Therefore, in order to build readers' correct color technology basics The concept will be elaborated in future articles, introducing concepts and knowledge about color technology.

The sense of color is an intricate and complex process. According to scientific explanations and definitions, the main factor in color formation is that after a light source hits an object, its light (or reverse) is stimulated by the naked eye to produce color. Feelings, so the formation of color is not only related to the stimulation of light, but also related to the visual organs of the naked eye. For the explanation of the above explanation and definition, we can clearly understand the basic elements of color formation: 1. light (source), 2. object (object; attenuator), 3. viewer (observer), for color The basic elements of formation. Since color is the phenomenon that the naked eye's retina receives from light stimulation, light plays a key role in the formation of color.

However, what is light? Light is an electromagnetic wave because light has the characteristics of reflection, interference, polarization and other waves, and the light absorption of light and objects. It is also a kind of light quantum with energy, so the light has both fluctuation and quantum physics. characteristic. The physical properties of light are determined by the wave and energy of light—the wavelength of light determines the color of light; the energy of light determines the intensity of light. Since electromagnetic waves are quite large in scope, they contain cosmic rays, ultraviolet rays, visible light, infrared rays, microwaves, etc., but electromagnetic waves that can truly produce color sensations in the human eye's visual system are visible light waves with a wavelength range of about 380 nm to 780 nm. In this visible spectrum, electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths produce different colors.

The general light source is a complex color light which is a mixture of monochromatic lights of different wavelengths. The so-called “monochromatic light” refers to the color light separated by white light or sunlight through Mitsubishi mirror refraction—red, orange, yellow and green. There are seven colors such as blue, white, purple, and purple. Because the discolored light will not be decomposed into other colors even if it passes through the Mitsubishi mirror again, the color light that cannot be decomposed is called monochromatic light. Light mixed by "monochromatic light" is called "multicolor light." In the natural world, the sunlight and artificially manufactured fluorescent lamps all reproduce light.

After a preliminary understanding of the nature of light, we will further explore the effects and effects of light on the color produced by objects. Natural objects can be divided into two categories:

1. Luminous body - refers to an object that can radiate light to the surrounding space, also known as a light source.

2. Non-luminous - refers to all substances other than light in nature.

The non-luminous body can only show color when it is irradiated by a ground light source. Therefore, if there is no light, the color of the object cannot be seen, and there is no sense of color. Different objects have different molecular and atomic structures. Therefore, when incident light strikes an object and incident light of a certain wavelength matches the characteristics of the object itself, the object absorbs incident light of this wavelength, leaving the rest The color light reflects off, revealing the color of the object, so the reason why the surface forms the color is the result of the selective absorption and reflection of light by the object. The color of the object that people see is the color of the light reflected and transmitted by the light and the object. In addition, the absorption of wavelength incident light in conformity with the characteristics of the object itself causes the electronic energy level of the object to jump to the orbit of a high energy level. This phenomenon is called light absorption; and because the electronic energy level jumps to the high energy level The orbit is relatively unstable, so the electrons then return to the original stable orbit, and the absorbed light energy is released as heat, or partially as light energy.

Therefore, what color the object presents is related to the object's selective absorption of monochromatic light of each wavelength in the visible light, and the selective absorption of monochromatic light of each wavelength in the visible light by the object depends on the physical property and chemical structure of the object itself. Light is the only reason why the human eye feels color; the color of an object is the property of the object itself that has light stimuli. Finally, we can draw the following conclusion: “The nature of matter itself can be said to be colorless, because the object itself determines the color of the object itself by selectively absorbing light waves with different wavelengths of light in the light source. It is colorless, and it is the light source that gives nature a multicolored and colorful color; the light source is the first element of color appearance, and the change of the light source has an absolute influence on the appearance of color."

(to be continued)