Talk:Tertiary color

A grey background is dramatically easier for identifying the full spectrum of colors on a light-based display. Kaz 15:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

HTML
Maybe it's just the Internet Explorer rocking the internet hard on this library computer I'm using, but the "Tertiary and quaternary color words" section seems to be all over the place. --62.107.81.200 (talk) 08:29, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Tertiary = Ternary?
Does anyone have a reference supporting the claim that "trinary color" originally meant the same thing as ternary color...the mixing of three colors to make a neutral, like grey or brown? Kaz 23:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Every serious writer uses "tertiary" this way, with the exception of Johannes Itten — whom I'd hesitate to call a serious writer :o). The concept seems to go back all the way to Moses Harris, see http://www.colorsystem.com/projekte/engl/10hare.htm. (and a view of his tertiary sector at http://www.colorsystem.com/projekte/Grafik/10har/har02.htm) — although he interpretes it as a mix of three secondaries. The word "tertiary" — for a mix of three out of six primaries — seems to be first used by George Field in his Chromatography of 1835, see: http://www.colorsystem.com/projekte/engl/18fiee.htm. William Benson used a fully modern interpretation (mix of three primaries) for his colour cube in 1868, see http://www.colorsystem.com/projekte/engl/21bene.htm. But all this should be obvious: if a secondary colour is defined as the mix of two primary colours, a mixing of a secondary and a primary colour again produces a secondary colour, just with an unequal ratio of the two primaries. You don't really need a distinctive term for this. But you do need one for the sector of colour space created by the mix of three primaries. "Ternary" is a new and still rare term and indicates the quality of any colour to be definable in a system with three parameters.


 * The other (and I would say: inferior and highly dysfunctional) use came about by mistake when people just created a colour wheel and then tried to insert those "tertiary colours" which they vaguely remembered to have heard of once. ;o)
 * --MWAK 18:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Spring green vs. aquamarine?
I changed the link from aquamarine to spring green with out changing the text. I did this because the colour on the page "Aquamarine (colour)" is not an exact match. Soopto (talk) 17:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Quaternary and quinary colors
The quaternary and quinary colors at the bottom of the article are getting less and less saturated. Why can't we use the colors on the fully saturated section of the RYGCBM color wheel?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Surely, almost by definition, all colours derived from a mixing of primary colours, whether additive or subtractive, will be less saturated. With each mixing, the saturation will be less (quaternary less saturated than tertiary, quinary less than quaternary etc.). The only fully saturated colours in a colour wheel created from three primaries, are those three primaries. Otherwise you would have to have different primary colours, or simply use spectral colours. Salsatron (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In RGB color theory, I always thought it was natural to think all colors whose coordinates have at least one 255 and at least one 0 are fully saturated. Do you see the difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:28, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * But are you referring to the RYB colors? It doesn't work the same way.  It's hard to see how it works, since it claims to derive from Field, but his book only has three tertiaries (citrine, russet, and olive) and no quaternaries.  So I suppose it has been re-interpreted by Maerz and Paul; it will be a while before I can get back to my copy and check the referenced page, but I doubt that they provide a source for color coordinates, and it's also unlikely that the referenced RGB RYB converter is sourceable to a WP:RS.  Dicklyon (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Quaternary Names?
Is there any way that we can get a more complete listing of the 12 quaternary colors for the RYB model? I noticed that a few are listed, but only in part of the red and blue area. I checked out the source cited for the names already given, though I could find no other names nor the ones already provided. Patrick of J (talk) 10:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * But this article is about tertiary colors and nothing else. Georgia guy (talk) 13:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

"Unlike the RGB (CMY) color wheel, the RYB color wheel has no scientific basis" One is relative to human vision, and the other derivable from the objective properties of light. The visible light spectrum is somewhat arbitrarily segmented (uneven 'length' of the spectrum for each 'color'), but is delineated in sequence by wavelength, and the 'primary colors' do mix together to create the rest of the visible spectrum. RYB may not be as valuable for color mixing purposes, but only because of the limited visual capabilities of an entirely human audience, and possibly also because of the limitations of our technology. It is not without scientific basis, and is if anything more objectively defined (now, the origin is irrelevant to the current definition in this context). 142.161.57.230 (talk) 16:08, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Tertiary = Quaternary?
Quaternary is the level after tertiary, and I couldn't find any external source that shows they're considered the same in chromatics. There was no explanation, information, or source listed in the body of this article either.

Is this a mistake, or is there something I'm missing here? – SarahTehCat (talk) 18:42, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Illustration for Olive, Teal and Purple
Can this graphic be of any use in this article?



- Veera.sj (talk) 06:31, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * "olive" is a Dark Yellow, "teal" is a Dark Cyan and "purple" is a Dark Magenta. 2A01:119F:21D:7900:440B:348E:9F6E:86EE (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

hidden factor
actually there is no difference between chartreuse, spring and green (you can make a test: change their position in color star and ask someone to re-identify them; he can't). eye sensitivity of color is not linear, it's logarithmic (just like sound leveling). redraw the spectrum and mixing ratios. for example a color "mid-between" color A and B doesn't mean that 50% of each (e.g. rose color is much near to red than magenta, though M-R is mixed 50-50. for spectrum, on horizontal axis, starting from red, every inch further, you need to "multiply" the frequency by a constant (10?). that's why there is "a lot of colors" between red to green and "just a negligible colors" from green to violet. and why red and yellow bulbs seem brighter than blue ones [with same characteristics] Tabascofernandez (talk) 03:53, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * To say there is no difference between chartreuse, spring, and green is categorically false. While many people may have difficulty discerning between shades of green, I am certain that I could correctly identify them if put to the test. I would argue that the inability of some to differentiate green is partly biological, but also related to cultural and linguistic considerations as well as the limitations of sRGB displays in rendering the entire spectrum (only around 30%) with green being its weakest region. Most people just do not have experience thinking of green in that way. The breakdown of the spectrum is something that has evolved over time and follows a specific pattern across different languages and cultures. In Japan, for example, the distinction between green and blue as separate colors is a relatively new development, and red and orange are still not quite distinct. While there are names for both, they were/are considered "shades of red" in the same way that azure and blue are both considered "shades of blue" in most languages/cultures. In Italy, Russia, and Israel, however, azure is considered a separate basic color from blue rather than a shade of blue. Red usually develops first encompassing shades of orange and pink, followed by yellow and combined blue/green. Then the blue/green split comes. And so on and so forth with brown, purple, orange, etc. It is continuing to evolve today as cyan/teal/turquoise, for example, is becoming distinct from blue and green. I submit that Italians would do a lot better with the color switch test you proposed using blue and azure than a Canadian, for example, and that's not because they are biologically more capable of distinguishing or remembering, and Canadians wouldn't certainly would do worse because there is no difference between the colors, but because linguistically and culturally, they're used to thinking of them as different colors. Green does make up a lot more of the color space, and for that reason, I do agree that the halfway point between its secondary neighbors, cyan and yellow, is not the best place to set its tertiary neighbors. Perceptually, it is a bigger step from sRGB yellow to chartreuse than from chartreuse to green, and lemon lime is perceptually a better step between them. Idisestablish (talk) 03:35, 23 September 2019 (UTC)


 * It's because sRGB is not a linear scale. It's not because of limitations in display. The linear halfway point between 00 and FF would be BC. The non-linearity of sRGB is to make it more accurate in encoding darker colors, as human vision is more precise the darker the color. However, in the green/cyan/yellow/white plane, the colors are all bright and the gamma curve doesn't perceptually apply here, but each individual channel is still encoded in sRGB. 50% in sRGB is about 21.4% in linear scale, so chartreuse and spring are closer to green than to yellow and cyan. Tupac Huang (talk) 08:33, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Sources?
No sources are listed for the tertiary or quaternary RGB/CMY names. Where did these come from?

Aside from Orange and Violet, I've always seen intermediaries listed as "Yellow-Green", "Green-Cyan", etc. The quaternary ones are especially puzzling: vermillion, amber, lime, harlequin, erin, aquamarine, capri, cerulean, ultramarine, purple, cerise, and crimson.

I know these are general terms for the midpoints between the tertiaries, but what authority or standard declares them as official nomenclature? If these are just pulled from the X11 list, like "erin" being exactly midway between green and spring, then the article should say so. Otherwise, it should be stated that no standardized list of tertiaries and quaternaries actually exists.

Several other Wikipedia color articles suffer from similar issues. There's often no indication/reference of where exact numeric values are found for specific color names, aside from X11. 174.20.139.176 (talk) 03:15, 29 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'd like to know where the names are coming from, as the cited source doesn't use them. Bumm13 (talk) 08:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)


 * The only source I can find is from 2010, listing mostly the same color names distributed evenly across RGB hue angles: Per Bang's “color map with meaningful names”. It is also referenced by Aubrey Jaffer’s “Color-Name Dictionaries”, which you can use to scan other color dictionaries (none have these “tertiary” dots evenly distributed along the boundary of the RGB gamut, except the Bang ones). Shaunewilliams (talk) 23:19, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

HSV/HSL
What Wikipedia claims to be RGB and CMY color wheels, isn't this hue scale actually from HSV/HSL, being equivalent to connecting specific six edges of the sRGB colorcube into a circle? 2A01:119F:21D:7900:E022:15ED:576A:3B51 (talk) 13:01, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Also, why is there a list of hue names, but not a list of saturation names or value names, such as Bright for S=1 V=1, Dark for S=1 V=0.5, Pale for S=0.5 V=1 and Dull for S=0.5 V=0.5 as used in ? 2A01:119F:21D:7900:E022:15ED:576A:3B51 (talk) 13:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

RYB primary inconsistency
It seems strange that this article is mostly focused on the RYB color space, which it mentions in the final section "has no scientific basis". It doesn't seem useful or necessary to include that color space's tertiaries, quaternaries, and quinaries. Nevertheless, if they are to be included the article should at least be consistent about what the RYB primary colors are. The first table in the Traditional painting section uses #ff000 for red, #ffff00 for yellow, and #0000ff for blue, as does the graphic labeled "A traditional RYB color wheel." However, in the following subsection the RYB primaries are #fe2712 for red, #fefe33 for yellow, and #0247fe for blue. This inconsistency is not only jarring, but makes this whole page much more confusing than it should be.

It seems strange that this page provides RYB primaries in the RGB color space when not even the RYB color model article does so. Can we simply remove the content related to the RYB color space from this article? Altay8 (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The section on "Comparison of RGB and RYB color wheels" should be removed. It's not really clear that RYB has no scientific basis. The main reason RGB is more popular is because of increased digital use. Markshinshu (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It isn't digital use that has made RBG (and CMYK) popular. Both are base on how human eyes work, because human eyes have red, blue, and green cone cells, activated by those wavelengths of light. It isn't so much that RYB has no scientific basis. It is that modern color science has found that red pigment and blue pigment of the traditional color model were the best approximations at that time to magenta and cyan, which provide a greater color gamut. Salocin.nosjack (talk) 01:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Super-quinary
What defines a super-quinary color?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Presumably they are colours with "ranks" above five. So, senary, septenary, octonary, etc. colours would qualify. Double sharp (talk) 23:42, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Double sharp, that's just ridiculous! I suggest we remove that column; it can violate WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Georgia guy (talk) 23:59, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, since it is unsourced. That said, I wonder if even the quaternary and quinary colours' names are sourceable. If they are not, even more pruning would seem to be in order. Double sharp (talk) 00:05, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Discussion is a couple weeks old, but I went ahead and axed the senary column. I temporarily renamed it, but upon discovering it was incomplete and there was opposition to its inclusion in the talk page, I went ahead and deleted it. I left the other columns alone. Jay eyem (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

But there are extremely many errors with the list of quinary HSV ‘colors’. First of all, it completely ignores saturation and value, which makes it completely useless for naming non-full-value or non-full-saturation colors as to define a color in HSV it is necessary to provide hue, saturation, and value, so it should be called a list of hues, not colors. Second of all, the rounding is incorrect as 0, 31⅞, 63¾, 95⅝, 127½, 159⅜, 191¼, 224⅛, 255 round to 00, 20, 40, 60, 80, 9F, BF, DF, and FF under the round to nearest rule. Thirdly, the ‘bright’ in the name ‘bright green’ could be interpreted as referring to particular saturation and/or value of green as opposed to its own hue. 2A01:119F:253:7000:34D7:3697:DC88:BE0C (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Quaternary and Quinary RBG Colors
I see where deleting the highly questionable and (at best) incomplete "senary" colors was discussed and then acted on, but I do not see any discussion that led to the deletion of the quaternary and quinary RBG colors. This leaves the article in the odd position of having quaternary and quinary RYB colors but no quaternary or quinary RBG colors. I propose we add those two columns back in. Salocin.nosjack (talk) 01:51, 28 February 2023 (UTC)


 * The quaternary names are dubious and quinary names are completely unreliable and unsourced. 2A01:119F:220:9400:3D31:CCC3:CB5D:BCB1 (talk) 19:39, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Senary colors
Does anyone have a picture of the column with senary colors before they got deleted? I would like to know how they were named. CyanAnimates7 (talk) 18:49, 12 June 2023 (UTC)


 * idk Rudi10001 (talk) 00:32, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Tertertiary colour is not the same as intermediate colour
See https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803103229854?fbclid=IwAR0dVqBMwfffecwuZ8NkNPBWinpibRXXa1btXyKOO7PP4A0JWoauSLWpJwM

https://www.teachkidsart.net/the-great-tertiary-color-debate/

Don't mix up intermediate colours with tertiary 91.213.225.240 (talk) 10:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Removing OR
I've removed the list of quinary colors as wp:or. Not only are the assignments of specific hue angles obvious OR, but even the existence of quinary colors in literature or even on the internet is mostly non-existent and therefore very wp:undue. Keep in mind that secondary (and tertiary, etc.) colors are purely a facet of traditional color theory and have no meaning in color science, so describing them quantitatively/scientifically (i.e. in a color space, like HSV) is mostly meaningless. I'm going to pick this article apart a bit more and likely boldly merge to secondary color. Curran919 (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)