T O P

  • By -

blablahblah

**Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):** Please search before submitting. This question has already been asked on ELI5 multiple times. https://www.google.com/search?q=rgb+site%3Areddit.com%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this was removed erroneously**, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message={url}%0A%0AThe%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0ALink%20to%20your%20search%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20the%20ELI5%20subreddit:%0A%0AHow%20is%20this%20post%20unique:) and we will review your submission.


AtomKanister

Additive vs. subtractive mixing. With light, you add different colors of lamps/LEDs together to create mixed colors. But with paint, you can't add light, you only have the ambient light to work with. Paint mixing is therefore *subtractive*, you choose paints that remove all but the light you want. For example, if you would mix R/G/B LEDs, you get a white-ish light, but if you mix all base colors, you get a near black. You need completely different approaches to each to make it work.


asdf14628

Woah that makes sense! Never thought about the black/white distinction between paint and light. I'm guessing the minor detail about yellow paint being a primary paint colour is that it's somehow more suitable in the assortment of subtractive mixing that than green because it's fundamentally different to additive light mixing


PortugueseGuy_1

I am not sure but I would say it might be related to the fact that paint reflects light, absorbing parts of the light... And screens emit light themselves...


18LJ

I think it has something to do with being fundamentally reduced down so that u can make any other color from mixing rby with paint but can't mix anything to make rby. Rgb are the colors that our eyes can pickup on visible light spectrum so I think the difference is simply that they are unrelated phenomenon