Talk:Color/Archive 8

Old lead, old lede
I suggest we take a look at the introduction to the version of 09:12, 29 November 2016. It was succinct and sufficient, and is the moment right before circular definitions and general gubbish started filling up the intro. I don't think five years of editing have improved it, and we could do a lot worse than just sticking that version right back in. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106;&#x1D110;&#x1d107; 01:39, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * That's not so far from the recent version that I more or less backed up to. Go away and make more tweaks if you see improvements from that version. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I hope you meant "go ahead"!! --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106;&#x1D110;&#x1d107; 04:37, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Well suggested, Jpgordon. For convenience I reproduce the sound (but imperfect) old lead that Jpgordon suggests:


 * Color (American English) or colour (Commonwealth English) is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, blue, yellow, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light power versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects or materials based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra. By defining a color space colors can be identified numerically by their coordinates.
 * Because perception of color stems from the varying spectral sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.
 * The science of color is sometimes called chromatics, colorimetry, or simply color science. It includes the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what is commonly referred to simply as light).

And for comparison, Dicklyon's version:


 * Color (American English), or colour (Commonwealth English), is a characteristic of visual perception described through color categories, with names such as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The perception of color derives from the stimulation of photoreceptor cells (in particular cone cells in the human eye) by electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with objects through their spectral power distribution (wavelength distribution) of light that is reflected or emitted from them. This wavelength distribution is governed by the object's physical properties such as light absorption, emission spectrum, illumination spectrum, etc.
 * By defining a color space, colors can be identified numerically by coordinates. In 1931 the International Commission on Illumination defined color spaces that are the basis for most modern color spaces corresponding to human trichromacy and to the three cone cell types that respond to three bands of light: long wavelengths, peaking near 564–580 nm (red); medium-wavelength, peaking near 534–545 nm (green); and short-wavelength light, near 420–440 nm (blue). There may also be more than three color dimensions in other color spaces, such as in the CMYK color model, wherein one of the dimensions relates to a color's colorfulness).
 * The photo-receptivity of the "eyes" of other species also varies considerably from that of humans and so results in correspondingly different color perceptions that cannot readily be compared to one another. Honey bees and bumblebees have trichromatic color vision sensitive to ultraviolet but insensitive to red. Papilio butterflies possess six types of photoreceptors and may have pentachromatic vision. The most complex color vision system in the animal kingdom has been found in stomatopods (such as the mantis shrimp) with up to 12 spectral receptor types thought to work as multiple dichromatic units.
 * The science of color is sometimes called chromatics, colorimetry, or simply color science. It includes the study of the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what is commonly referred to simply as light).

Support immediate reversion to the old lead suggested by Jpgordon. followed by orderly and rational discussion toward improving it – informed especially by editors who have a full grasp of the science and the interpretive pitfalls to watch out for, and by editors capable of the sort of clear and communicative writing that this vexed topic demands.

I like Dicklyon's version, but utterly oppose the retention of this offensive nonsense (see my reasons, and my reformed version, in the preceding section):
 * "... corresponding to human trichromacy and to the three cone cell types that respond to three bands of light: long wavelengths, peaking near 564–580 nm (red); medium-wavelength, peaking near 534–545 nm (green); and short-wavelength light, near 420–440."

And again, I suggest that editors familiarise themselves with WP:LEAD, partly to avoid material in the lead that does not also appear in the remainder of the article.

114.72.76.18 (talk) 04:41, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I thought I did a half decent job converting the nonsense about the CIE and RGB to "In 1931 the International Commission on Illumination defined color spaces that are the basis for most modern color spaces corresponding to human trichromacy and to the three cone cell types...", and I left the bit about identifying the cone types with red, green, and blue after verifying that at least one of the cited sources did so. But that doesn't mean I like it.  Happy to leave that all out of the lead. Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you did a great job. But procedurally, it's better to revert to something with less detail that will be more generally acceptable here – as a basis for incremental and consensual improvement. 114.72.76.18 (talk) 06:37, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I've rolled the intro back to 2016. It's a far better base to work from. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106;&#x1D110;&#x1d107; 13:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree that's a lot better; might as work from there. Dicklyon (talk) 17:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The direction looks good to me. North8000 (talk) 18:48, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Jpgordon. Well done! Let's advance cautiously from there, having all seen how changes to the lead in articles like this call for extreme vigilance.
 * 114.72.76.18 (talk) 23:05, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Good move. Tony (talk)  01:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The introductory sentence in this article sucks
This sentence basically just substitutes the word categories (undefined in this context) for the word color. The first sentence tells us absolutely no information at all except that you are defining categories as red, blue, yellow, etc.

I am also changing the three colors to blue, green, red, etc. (In that order because of already discovered physical properties of the universe). See Primary Color UniversalHumanTranscendence (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your first paragraph. North8000 (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Color Science redirect
Color science redirects here. I would prefer, and it has been tried in the past, to redirect it to colorimetry. Colorimetry seems like the much more intuitive redirect. Plus, looking at the incoming links to color science, most of them would work best by being forwarded to colorimetry. Moving discussion here from Talk:Color science. Curran919 (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Retarget to Colorimetry is best, Color is second best. ―Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:54, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sending to colorimetry seems fine, though someone could also write an article at the title color science. These topics are not quite co-extensive. Even a quick stub of an article with clear links to color, color vision, colorimetry, etc. might still be better than a redirect. It would provide some room for expansion about the history of the field, descriptions of degree programs, journals, conferences, international organizations, relation between academia and industry, etc. That would let colorimetry stay focused on technical details about color measurement per se. It might also be nice if someone added an article at color reproduction someday. –jacobolus (t) 02:32, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that such a "quick stub" would be better than a redirect. It was also be a good place to describe the difference/distinction with color theory. Dicklyon (talk) 13:55, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I'll buy all that for a dollar, but I don't quite grok the vision, so its not something I can put together myself. Do you want to put it together? I can also redirect to colorimetry ad interim. Curran919 (talk) 20:03, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I mean something along the lines of,
 * Color science is the scientific study of color including lighting and optics; measurement of light and color; the physiology, psychophysics, and modeling of color vision; and color reproduction.
 * might have a better idea though. –jacobolus (t) 00:16, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That looks good to me. One of the best books in the field is Hunt's The Reproduction of Colour after all. Do we have an article that covers that? Dicklyon (talk) 00:58, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's any article about it, and most of Wikipedia's relevant articles (color management, color printing, color mapping, color space, subtractive color, CMYK color model, ...) are a bit of a mess. Primary color and RGB color model are probably the best of the bunch. jacobolus (t) 06:21, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 November 2022
Why is the original English word colour not stated first instead of the American English word color? Surely the original and most used word in many countries should be first? What is the reasoning behind this? Seymour79 (talk) 03:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The way Wikipedia community conventions have developed, each article uses internally consistent spelling, but there is no site-wide spelling convention (see WP:ENGVAR). This particular article uses American English, but some others use British English. –jacobolus (t) 04:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: because ↑. 3mi1y (talk) 07:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)


 * It may be worth pointing out to the OP that there is a Wikipedia page titled Colour. It is a redirect to this article. So there is no problem for anyone searching for that version of the word. HiLo48 (talk) 09:16, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Revised the lead
I boldly revised the lead to make it more comprehensive and accessible. I've also removed the (American English) and (British English) as it kinda clutters the lead and the fact that there are a lot more variants of English than just these two. In practice, both names are used interchangeably in both countries and any user that want to know that information can just look it up at dictionaries. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Took a quick glance. Looks good. Maybe you would be a good candidate to explain what color models and color spaces actually are, which our articles don't really do. North8000 (talk) 16:23, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @North8000 What other section should I improve first? I really want to improve the entire article, but I'm not sure which section is the easiest to research about. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * An informative explanation on what a Color model and Color space actually is would be a good addition here.   And then add that to those two articles because they don't have it. North8000 (talk) 17:58, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * These aren't super well defined terms in technical literature (and even worse on Wikipedia). Anyone trying to clarify here should probably start by reading some books on the subject though. Maybe try Kuehni's books Color Space and its Divisions and Color Ordered. –jacobolus (t) 00:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the problem in Wikipedia on these is that the articles cover the trees don't explain the forest. North8000 (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Rewriting the article
Time to do it :) CactiStaccingCrane 14:01, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Edit from black color screen to normal regular screen 2600:4041:5B63:AD00:A027:A99:EEDE:23D7 (talk) 10:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Painful to read
Why is the spectrum reversed compared to most texts that have IR/Red on left with Blue / UV on the right.

Why "Commonwealth" English. That's abusive to English speakers outside British Commonwealth.

Why is so much of Wikipedia default to a USA perspective and language? Less than 13% of World's population. 84.203.197.224 (talk) 12:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Why is the spectrum reversed compared to most texts that have IR/Red on left with Blue / UV on the right. Decided by consensus of the involved editors.  It is not painful.  If you have a better picture, perhaps you can convince the editors here to replace it.
 * Why "Commonwealth" English. That's abusive to English speakers outside British Commonwealth. Because speakers of "Commonwealth" English have created a disproportionate amount of the articles here. It is not abusive.
 * Why is so much of Wikipedia default to a USA perspective and language? Less than 13% of World's population. Because people who live in the USA produce most of the articles.  You are welcome to produce articles from other perspectives.  And, secondly, because this is English Wikipedia.  There are Wikipedias in eleven other languages.  You are welcome to expand those.
 * Constant314 (talk) 13:40, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually "people who live in the USA produce most of the articles" is not true (low 40s%, as I recall). I think it is 47 other language wps - see the bottom of the main page. Johnbod (talk) 00:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
 * There seem to be confusion in terminology.   This is the English Wikipedia. The US is the country with the largest amount of people with English as their primary language.  There are Wikipedias within our organization in many other languages although the English Wikipedia is the largest.   And there are many other non-Wikipedia projects that are under our overall organization. North8000 (talk) 01:08, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Many images of the full electromagnetic spectrum show frequency as the horizontal axis, from low to high. In colorimetry the convention is to use wavelength as the horizontal axis, again from low to high. Neither is inherently better. –jacobolus (t) 16:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)