Talk:Tertiary color

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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)

[edit] 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)