It has been a lot of fun writing this series and numerous people have said to me how useful they have found it. Below is an index of the articles in the series for quick reference.
Enjoy!
Posts Tagged ‘light’
Color Theory Basics – The Index
Monday, February 1st, 2010Color Theory Basics – The Effect of Lamp Type on Color
Friday, January 29th, 2010For the last installment in my series about Color Theory we will look at how Color and the Perception of Color is affected by the source of the light, or the Lamp Type. Anyone who has spent any amount of time working with a mixed package of discharge sources and conventional lights knows that getting them to work together can present significant challenges. Further, the qualities of light (direct vs. indirect or spotlight vs. flood lights) can effect how we perceive the exact same color from the exact same lamp. It is useful to have a basic working knowledge of these ideas so that you can approach your lighting plot from a stronger position.
The Effect of Source.
Most lighting for live performance utilizes Incandescent lights. These are variations on the same bulbs found in any household or workplace. There is some kind of metal filament which is encased in a glass globe. Electricity is passed through the filament and the heat from that is discharged in the form of light. As much advancement as we have seen, these are very simple technologies, and not too far from fire. We burn an object and it creates light and heat. Oldest trick in the lighting book.
Because we are basically operating on the same system as our caveman ancestors, the colors are very similar. These bulbs make a warm soft glow. Our eye is particularly attuned to this range of colors and while the full spectrum of visible light is present in this “White” light, there is a preponderance of light in the Red and Amber range. This makes the light emitted from such bulbs appear “natural” and “looks good” on any range of skin tones.
An alternative to the incandescent bulb is the Discharge Source. A common discharge bulb used in Film, TV, and some live performance is the HMI. Rather than burning a piece (or pieces) of metal, the glass globe is filled with various gasses which, when excited by the introduction of electricity, emit light in rather precise wavelengths. Fluorescent bulbs work this way as well. Depending on the mixture of gasses, the color will be different. Neon is a commonly used gas as are Sodium, Mercury, and others.
How do these work?
Electricity causes a shift in the orbit of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. In these more agitated states, the atoms can absorb some amount of additional electrons. At some point the atom returns to its normal state and the electrons return to their standard orbit. When this happens the extra electrons are released from orbit in the form of photons. The wavelength of the photon (or as our eyes and brain would say, Color) is determined by the type of atom we are dealing with. The Earth’s atmosphere, for example, has a mixture of gasses which, when averaged, produce light in the medium Blue range. As the sunlight filters through the atmosphere, exciting the gasses in our atmosphere, the light emitted from the restored atoms averages out to Blue. Color mixing and physics!
Because the mixture of gasses produce different colors of light, the use of color filters on these lights will produce different effects than when used on incandescent lamps. We commonly see these differences when using Followspots. While the majority of our lighting rig might be incandescent spotlights, the followspots are very likely Xenon, or some other gas. Thus we must balance the color of the spots to blend with the rest of the lighting. The difference in lamp type in these situations is a primary cause of Missing Color Syndrome and a leading need to understand Color Correction. Similar situations arise through the use of many Automated lighting instruments. This is why many will include a CTO option in their color mixing and/or color wheel options.
Not only is the actual color different based on what kind of bulb we have, but the perception of the color can change based on whether the light is direct or indirect, a spot or a flood. Direct light from spotlights are the most common in live performance. Be they ERSs, PARs, Fresnels, or other, all of these lights produce a hard direct light. The light comes, more or less, straight our of the bulb in a concentrated fashion and hits an object. Because of this, the light is seen as being very present. Under certain conditions you can see the geometric shape of the cone of light itself.
Contrast that with floodlights like Mini-10s, Far Cycs, or Mercury Vapor Gym lights, and you see that the quality of light is much softer and more diffuse. We still have the directionality and the hardness, but we lose the geometry. While these can be useful for filling a volume of space efficiently with light, they are not so good for giving that light a clearly defined presence. As the light has less presence so too does our perception of the color. While you might want this effect, it can make colors appear muddy or unclear. You get illumination, but it can be hard to get a real sense of the light itself as an entity.
Taking another step back we have indirect sources like Softlites and Bounce Light. While you can bounce any kind of light off of any kind of surface, typically one uses a spotlight to bounce off a White surface. This is a technique common in Film and TV, but rare in live performance. The quality of light is similar to that of an overcast day. There is illumination, but it is shadowless. The light wraps around and enfolds objects. While it is a beautiful quality of light, one must very carefully consider their color choices here. The light itself is so recessive that getting basic visibility necessitates clear and considered color choices.
While the default choice for most designers is some version of the incandescent spotlight, there is a whole world of options available, each of which provides the designer with myriad opportunities for using Color in new and exciting ways. I would encourage you to explore the whole range of lamps and qualities of light to see how it effects your perception of Color.
Thank you for reading this series. I hope you found it useful.
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Color Theory Basics – Gray
Monday, January 25th, 2010No discussion of Color or Color Theory on this blog would be complete without an exploration of the color Gray. If I was being truly rigorous and precise it would have been part of the discussion on Saturation and Chroma as Gray is, by definition, non-chromatic light. For personal and pragmatic reasons I chose to place Gray in it’s own section. The subtlety of this range is such that it requires mastery of the other basics before it can really be approached.
I find it amazing to me how many people, when I mention that Gray is my favorite color, tell me it either does not exist or cannot be created with light. In a certain sense this is true. Gray, like White, is a perceptual effect caused by the mixture of all wavelengths of light. However, it is exactly this perceptual effect that I find so rich, varied, and interesting. Curiously these same people who tell me the color does not exist, or can not be created, then go off to start up their computers with apple logos on them and watch as their RGB screens produce a Gray on Gray opening window as it loads the operating system. The inability of many to properly mix Gray, does not deny its existence. Rather, it points out how difficult the color is to achieve.
For a more poetic exploration of Gray read my essay Ten Thousand Shades of Gray. For the purposes of this essay we will be looking at a more systematic approach to utilizing Gray-scale lighting to achieve dramatic effects. Reading my previous essay on Color Mixing, if you do not have much practical experience in that regard, is necessary for understanding the ideas contained in here.
First lets look at Gray from an RGB mix. This is how your computer screen makes Gray. It is how the sticky note upon which I am writing this essay is perceived as Gray by me. Mixing Gray from RGB gives you tremendous control. Just as there are many different Hues of chromatic colors, there are just as many Hues in Gray. You can have a Blue-Gray or a Green-Gray, a Warm-Gray or a Cool-Gray. The subtle distinction and changes in how you mix your Gray, in this case I am imagining a Cyc, make costumes and people pop from that background or recede into it.
All of this control however is deeply time consuming. Just like any precise color mixing (CMY matching Gel colors for example) you have to be patient and clearly look at what you see before you. Mixing a good Gray gets down to adjusting lighting levels by one percent at a time until you reach the final mix. You can not rush this process or the work ends up sloppy and you walk away saying things like “Gray can not be mixed with theatrical lights.”
Not only is the work inherently time consuming but the focus must be precise. It is virtually impossible to do work in a Gray scale on a Cyc without a boucedrop. The light must be even enough that the edges of the color mixing are totally imperceptible. While this is true for all color mixed Cycs, an improperly focused RGB drop in Gray tones, is deadly. Take your time to plan through your drop lighting. Take your time to focus. Take your time to mix the colors. When you have taken the time to properly think through all of this the results will be truly satisfying.
Strict RGB (G250, L090, R80 for example) is one way to achieve these effects. But there are other ranges of colors that can be used. CTBs from about 1/2 CTB to double CTB work quite well. Similar colors like L161 can also be used to good effect. A warm CTB like R3202 can mix well with a color like L161 to create a nice range of cool and warm Gray. Add in a little CLR or Lavender and you can easily mix a wide range of Gray. While your options will be much more limited, you gain the benefit of saving a lot of time mixing the colors as they naturally fall into a Gray palette from the beginning.
Lavenders, mentioned above, can be useful. So too can pale Cyan, especially if you want to cast a more Dominant quality to the light. Cyan can be a wonderful option when used in a palette of dominant blues. However it runs the risk of appearing too chromatic against more recessive colors. Specifically recessive Blues. One must be very attentive to the color choices made when working in Grey or else you simply end up with an unsaturated palette. While that too can be engaging, if it is not the intent, then it is not right.
Let us now return to the Woman-in-a-Red-Dress. While we decided last week to have the entire stage go Red on her entrance, the director thought the move was too blunt. She would prefer to have the woman set against the environment in a striking way. Here is a perfect opportunity for Gray. We light the scene in cool Gray tones throughout. Then, when the Woman-in-a-Red-Dress enters we do a slight shift on the Cyc to increase the Green a point or two. We use our L202 Backlight and R3202 Frontlight for the scene. The effect is one where the complementary colors of Green(er) Cyc and Cool(er) Backlight separate the dress from the rest of the environment. The warm(er) Frontlight helps to pull the dress out even more. This will give us precisely the effect our director wants. A brilliantly illuminated figure which appears to stand outside the rest of the action and an otherwise unified space.
This essay up to now has assumed you were using incandescent lights with color filters to create your Gray environment. However, there is an entire world of lighting beyond those bulbs with incandescing filaments. Many discharge sources work very well to create Gray worlds. Metal Halides and HMIs are a prime example. HMI is daylight and Metal Halide is in that family but pushed towards Green. Fluorescent tubes can be an exciting way to explore Gray. Mercury Vapor lights come close but run the risk of being too Green. They can be amazing in the right balance, but you should use them wisely.
The world of Gray is an amazing, and often underutilized, tool in the lighting designer’s tool kit. While it takes a large degree of discipline, dedication, and rigor, the payoff can be astounding. I encourage you to explore this world and the full richness it provides just as you would more chromatic color ideas.
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. In my last post for this series I will be exploring The Effect of Lamp Type on Color. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.
Color Theory Basics – Additive and Subtractive Color Mixing
Friday, January 22nd, 2010From our discussions of Hue we learned the basic properties of what the human eye perceives as color. In later essays we looked at how some of these principals might be applied in practical theatrical settings. Until now we have left out one of the most fun parts of working with color. Color Mixing.
Color Mixing is where we really get to test our knowledge of light and color and see what we know. We have already done some mixing through our exploration of Missing Color Syndrome but that has all been reactionary. We were trying to solve problems, not create environments. Now we will look at color and color mixing as a proactive tool in the designer’s tool kit.
As we recall from our basic color wheel there are three Primary Colors of light; Red, Green, and Blue. Those can then be mixed into the three Secondary Colors of light; Magenta, Cyan, and Amber. Obviously by varying the amount of each color, or mixing in slight amounts of the third Primary you can get the full range of possible Hues out of these three colors. Needless to say, you need not limit yourself to six heavily saturated Hues. You can see from the image on the left the basic principals of Additive Color Mixing with light. It is called “additive” because we might take a Red light and ADD Green to it to make Yellow.
Wait. What?!?!
For those new to mixing light and color this can take some time to wrap your head around but this is how the process works. Red+Green=Yellow. Green+Blue=Cyan. Blue+Red=Magenta. All but the first make logical sense to a brain trained to understand colors in terms of pigments. But we must unlearn that knowledge if we are to truly embrace the power of color.
So Additive Color Mixing comes about when we have two or more Hues mixing together to create a third Hue. This has traditionally been the most common form of color mixing in live performance. However, with the advent of Automated Lighting we have seen a radical shift towards a second method for mixing colors. That is Subtractive Color Mixing.
In order to fully understand subtractive color mixing we need to back up a moment and review. What the human eye perceives as White light is really just the phenomenon of the eye seeing a roughly even distribution of all the colors in the visible spectrum. With that in mind let us look at a typical lightbulb. When the light is on, it emits light across the full spectrum of visible light. If we put a Red (say G250) color filter in front of the light we are not “turning the light Red.” Rather, what we are doing is blocking off, or filtering out, every wavelength of light except those in the Red range.
Now Subtractive Color Mixing gets a little complex, for those new to it please bear with me, the pay off is definitely worth it. When dealing with Subtractive Color Mixing we actually need to invert our understanding of Primary and Secondary Colors. If Red, Green, and Blue are our Primary Colors for Additive Mixing, then Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta are our Primary Colors for Subtractive Mixing. That’s three different sets of Primary and Secondary Colors (when we include the Red, Blue, Yellow of pigments) we have to keep in our brain.
Confused yet?
Subtractive Color Mixing actually subtracts in two ways. First is the method described above where it subtracts all the wavelengths NOT in the color filter. So when we put a Magenta filter in front of a light we are removing all the wave lengths that are not Magenta. Now, remember that Magenta is comprised of Red and Blue. So when we put that filter up it is as though we were using a Red and Blue filter together. If we want to make Red we need to get rid of the Blue.
How do we do this?
If we recall our Primary Color Wheel for light we remember that Blue and Yellow are opposite colors. By adding Yellow to the Magenta we are in essence canceling out the Blue and leaving us with Red. If an algebra equation would help, we are trying to solve M+Y=??? We know that Y=(-B) and M=(B+R) so the equation could be rewritten (B+R)+(-B) or B+R-B=R. Clearly we don’t need to go back to High School Algebra to understand color, but it can help to wrap your brain around the processes involved in Subtractive Color Mixing when first encountering these ideas.
Many Automated Lighting systems utilize Subtractive Color Mixing in their color functions in order to give the designer a full range of colors to work with in their projects. I would like to explore two commonly used accessories. The first is the Wybron CXI and the second is the Morpheus Color Fader. Both of these devices use Subtractive Color Mixing (known in the industry and CMY Color Mixing). Wybron’s technology uses two strings, one with various saturations of Cyan and Magenta, the other with various saturations of Magenta and Yellow. Morpheus uses three strings of color. One each for Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. The strings range in an even transition from Clear to full saturation.
While the Wybron will give you 432 colors, the Morpheus will give you millions of color options and a degree of precision not available with the Wybron units. Further, because the Wybron units employ discrete pieces of gel strung together one cannot do live color fades without stepping through various unwanted and potentially unpleasant colors in the process. This is the same problem encountered when using a traditional color scroller. The Morpheus technology on the other hand allows for smooth color transitions live on stage. In addition, because it employs three color strings, the designer can vary the speeds at which the different colors crossfade. So if one wanted to fade from Red to Blue, you could have the Yellow fade out faster and the Cyan fade in slower thus passing through Magenta rather than some strange unwanted color.
In a lighting world where advanced automated systems are becoming more and more prevalent, the designer must have an implicit knowledge of these technologies and the color theories underlying them. Even if your work does not typically use color changing technology of this sort, you will inevitably find yourself in situations where you will have to grapple with them. Forewarned is forearmed. Solving problems is a lot more interesting than sitting around trying to decode complex color theory. Especially when the clock is ticking ever closer to opening night.
If we return to our Woman-in-a-red-dress we immediately see the benefits of these theories and their related technologies. Rather than spending tons of time sifting through gel books in the studio and comparing them to the fabric swatches, we might simply point a few of our moving lights, or color changing crosslights, at the Woman-in-a-red-dress on her entrance. From there we can fine tune the color to precisely match the tones of her costume and skin. Having this control is especially nice when the fabric gets dyed a slightly different Hue than we originally planned for.
Perhaps the whole stage goes Red upon her entrance in a bump. Then the rest of the stage does a color fade to our recessive Blue while she walks out and takes control of the scene backlit in Red, with crosslights perfectly matched to her skin tone. Being able to have just the right mix of Yellow and Magenta to make the dress truly shine takes skill, patience, and attention to craft.
Knowing the uses and distinctions between Additive and Subtractive Color Mixing is a powerful practical application of lighting Color Theory. In later posts I will be exploring Gray and The Effect of Lamp Type.
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. We will continue to build on these concepts throughout this series. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.
Color Theory Basics – Color Correction
Monday, January 18th, 2010Film and Television has a need for accuracy with regards to color that does not translate to the stage. When on location, and shooting a scene where the primary illumination is the sun, it is often necessary to augment that light with artificial sources. The Director of Photography wants the artificial light to blend seamlessly with the natural sunlight, so they must precisely alter the color of the artificial light. Or, perhaps a scene is being shot inside a room with views to the outside. The human eye will notice the table lamp is a little more Amber and the light through the window a little more Blue. A camera will see a huge difference. In order to make the camera see these two lights as being variants on “White Light” it is necessary to use precise color filters to transform these lights into the appropriate color temperature. This is the film equivalent of Missing Color Syndrome.
Enter the world of Color Correction.
Color Correction is the general term for filters which turn incandescent lights to daylight (CTB or Color Temperature Blue), daylight to incandescent (CTO or Color Temperature Orange), fluorescent to daylight (Minus Green), and daylight to fluorescent (Plus Green). While in a filmic setting this topic could cover several posts, because I am dealing with color theory for stage lighting, we will address this all in a single essay.
CTB filters are probably the most commonly used Color Correction filters in stage lighting today. With the introduction of HMI Fresnels into live performance there arose a need to precisely balance the color of traditional incandescent lighting sources against these new Daylight discharge sources. Aside from the formal aesthetics of the light itself, these Hues provide the designer with a range of colors that look very good along the entire spectrum of human skin tones, as well as nearly all costumes. This has led to a shift in contemporary design towards a cool and clean stage picture which employs a range of CTB filters.
Let us return to our Rosco color correction from the discussion on Saturation. We can see that the colors range from nearly White to a nice cool Blue. The penultimate color, R3202, converts incandescent sources to Daylight (direct sunlight). The next color, R3220, is closer to the Blue Sky in which the sun hangs. Because different lights will be warmer or cooler we have a range of filters to fit every need.
Lee makes a similar range of colors. The difference between them is that Rosco colors tend to have a little more red in them, and are thus more recessive than the Lee colors which have a bit of Green and are more dominant. Returning to the needs of Film, Lee colors are more accurate, and are used more regularly. On the stage, the Rosco colors can be more effective because of the warmer tones on human skin. Knowing these distinctions it becomes possible to construct very clean palettes within a very tight range of colors that will give us all the effects we want from Dominant and Recessive Colors yet appears as Daylight to an audience.
Going about in this manner we might use L201 (Full CTB) in our Backlight to give a strong dominant color choice for that angle. For our Sidelight then, wanting to be a bit less saturated so as to maintain skintones and costume colors, we might choose L202 (1/2 CTB). This color has the added benefit of giving us a high dynamic range of color temperatures. When the light is at full intensity is a cool and crisp light. As we dim it, the light source gets warmer and more Amber such that we can use these lights for warm intimate scenes as well. For our Frontlight we might want something close to Clear incandescent light. But, remembering what we learned about Missing Color Syndrome would want a color in a sympathetic Hue to the rest of our Palette. Perhaps we would choose an R3216 (1/8 CTB), a more recessive version of this same family of colors.
When working with HMI, or similar discharge sources which produce a cold light, we can use these same ideas in reverse. Thus we might use a 1/8 CTO Backlight, 1/2 CTO Sidelight and Full CTO Frontlight. Similar to the CTB, the distiction between Rosco and Lee is the same. Rosco tends towards Red while Lee tends towards Green.
These same ideas and principles apply to the use of Plus Green and Minus Green filters. The Minus Green filters have the added benefit of working as a precise range of colors when solving Missing Color Syndrome or trying to balance out a followspot (which tend to be cold and a bit Green) against a majority incandescent light plot.
Just as the more visible technology we use in the lighting industry has made tremendous advances in terms of intelligent lighting, show control, rigging, and so forth, so too has the world of color technology. Time was even the level of control considered necessary for film was nowhere near as precise as it is now. Today, color technology has advanced to the level of precision where we can convert the color of newer quartz lamps (like those found in Source-4s) to traditional incandescent lamps with filters like R302.
The world of color correction is, on its own, as broad and varied as the whole world of color. Simply fine tuning color work within these ranges can be an experiment years in the making. Some designers have made whole careers with a palette that hardly diverges from this range.
If you are new to the world of Color Correction I would strongly encourage you to start exploring. Compare analogous colors like L201 and R3202 and see what distinctions you can make. Do all the colors from a particular manufacturer vary only in Saturation or is there variance in Hue as well?
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. We will continue to build on these concepts throughout this series. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments.
Color Theory Basics – Dominant and Recessive Colors
Friday, January 15th, 2010Close your eyes.
Imagine yourself hiking through the hills. You have been walking amidst some trees for a while and come to a clearing. It’s a few hours after noon and you notice the sun has begun its progression towards the Western horizon. In front of you are more trees crisply limned in the mid-afternoon sunlight. You look a further on towards the mountains in the distance and notice that these same trees and brush appear bathed in a pale lavender light.
You may now open your eyes.
The human eye, having evolved over millions of years with these lighting effects present, has learned to process certain colors as being in either the foreground or the background. The crisp 5700K sunlight is an indicator to our eyes that something is in the foreground. A soft and delicate lavender is an indicator to our eyes that something is far off in the distance. The former dominates our field of view, while the latter recedes into the background.
Beyond evolution, Dominant and Recessive Colors have another interesting property as well. Dominant Colors tend to hold their integrity as colors when in the presence of other colors. Recessive Colors willingly and readily mix in with other colors to either disappear entirely or form third colors.
Probably the clearest example of a dominant color would be Cyan. No matter what you do, it will always be Cyan. You can add Blue to make it more Blue, or Green to make it more Green, but it will always be Cyan, dominant and in the foreground. At the opposite extreme we have Lavender. No matter what other color you turn on, your Lavender will do its level best to mix with that color and recede into the background.
Knowing that some colors are inherently perceived as being in the foreground, while others are perceived as being in the background, gives us tremendous opportunity to sculpt our stage picture and focus the eye where we want it to go.
To reiterate, a Dominant Color will push a figure forwards while a Recessive Color will cause a figure to recede into the distance. The example of ABT’s lightplot, from our discussion on Missing Color Syndrome, applies here as well. The R70 in the Backlight is a Dominant Color which, being Backlight, helps to push our dancer towards us and sculpts the outline of their body. The R51 Frontlight allows us to see them, but the color quickly receeds into whatever else we might have turned on, perhaps some L201 Shins. In this way we can use Frontlight for facial illumination without sacrificing the sculptural qualities of our Backlight and Sidelight.
Backlight and Sidelight are Dominant Angles. They are very powerful and present in a way that a Recessive Angle like Frontlight is not. Using Dominant Colors in Dominant Angles and Recessive Colors in Recessive Angles, as we see in the ABT Repertory Plot, can create striking effects.
Let us now explore these ideas with our Woman-in-a-Red-Dress. Having lit her in Magenta (dominant) Backlight and Lavender (recessive) Frontlight we have created a look whereby our ingenue is front and center in our visual focus, her face is clearly lit and her body is sharply outlined against the scenery. We now have to light the other people in the scene who are watching her. Perhaps we use the same Frontlight system but turn on the Congo Blue (recessive) Backlight. They will all be clearly visible, but our eye will naturally be drawn to the Woman-in-a-Red-Dress. This is true even if she is way upstage of them!
The use of Dominant and Recessive Colors, in conjunction with Dominant and Recessive Angles, helps to create a sense of focus for the eye in much the same way that a camera can put foregound or background figures into focus. In short, we control our depth of field through these tools and thus compose our stage pictures to reflect the key objects we should be looking at in a given light cue.
With these distinctions in mind it could be easy to question why we would use Recessive colors at all. If we want to create powerful and dynamic stage pictures, then everything should be Dominant. Right? It is healthy to be wary of Recessive Colors. One could easily design a palette which looks great in the studio but, when put into practice, makes it impossible to see anyone clearly. The key here is to use colors judiciously and correctly.
At the same time, while it is good to embrace bold Dominant Color choices, do not get carried away. The eye gets tired. Further, you could find yourself having trouble losing focus on a secondary area of the stage. Be bold, but know when to temper your passions.
Remember the first rule of lighting; everything is relative.
One could construct a plot out of all Recessive Colors (I have done it many times). Because some colors are more recessive than others you could create many of the same effects through using colors that are less recessive in the Backlight and more recessive in the Frontlight. There are plenty of delicate ballets and whimsical musicals which call for just such a color palette.
Knowing the distinctions between Dominant and Recessive Colors is a critical tool in composing our looks for the stage. If you missed my essays on Hue or Saturation and Chroma I would encourage you to go back and read them through. In later posts I will be exploring Color Correction, Gray, The Effect of Lamp Type, and Additive vs. Subtractive color mixing.
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. We will continue to build on these concepts throughout this series. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments.
Color Theory Basics – Missing Color Syndrome
Monday, January 11th, 2010Building upon ideas from our discussions of Hue and Saturation and Chroma we will now explore a phenomenon called Missing Color Syndrome. If you did not read the first two essays I would encourage you to do so as they provide foundational concepts which will be necessary to understand for this post to be of any real use.
Before I begin, I want to preface this essay by saying that this concept and the effects we are discussing here are some of the most difficult to understand through words. Writing about lighting color theory at all is a bit of a losing battle, but Missing Color Syndrome in particular only lands when you directly observe the problem, and the solution. I would encourage you to test these ideas and play around with different color combinations to see the different instances of these effects.
And now, on with the show.
Missing Color Syndrome is the name of the phenomenon that occurs when two lights with more saturated color media play against a less saturated or Clear light. The less saturated light takes on the quality of the shadow color of the more dominant light(s). The result is a light that does not look the way the designer intended it to. While this might be a problem for the unprepared, when we analyze the problem clearly, or even ahead of time, with the proper tools, we can bring greater awareness and precision to our color palettes for every show we light.
How does Missing Color Syndrome arise?
The human eye (or more accurately the human brain) has a propensity to create patterns. Add to that the evolution of the human eye to see what we know as the “visible spectrum” of light and you end up with a piece of technology that tries to see White light (or at least all three primary colors) in its field of vision at all times. Should we compose a look with only two of those colors, the eye will do its best to turn the least saturated light into that missing third color. If you use only Red and Blue, for example, the eye will desperately search for Green and will take liberties to turn non-Green colors Green if it has to.
Let’s return to our Woman-in-a-Red-Dress, once again, to see where this problem might arise. Perhaps our earlier choice of a G250 Frontlight was not the best. It toned her skin a too rosy pink and the director was interested in very natural skin tones for her actors. Further, the costume designer felt that while the color popped, his patterns and textures were lost. For our own reasons we decide against a true Red and choose a sympathetic color, Magenta. We put our L126 in a Backlight special and turn it on. It looks fantastic. Now to light her face. Excited by the Magenta we turn on our Frontlight and it looks a little Green. So we turn it up brighter. Still Green. By the time we have cranked it up to Full we do not notice the Green, but that fantastic Magenta halo effect is gone and she no longer looks like the stunning ingenue but rather like some too bright mannequin from a poorly lit department store.
This could be a disaster, but with our new found color tools, it is a solvable problem.
Returning to our Color Wheel we see that Magenta and Green are opposite one another. As we learned in our discussion of Hue, a shadow will take on the opposite color of its light. Because of this, when we put Magenta color media in front of one of the lights it makes the other light appear Green. This is not physics but physiology. How the human eye perceives something is wholly dependent upon the context.
To put it simply, everything is relative.
Now, one solution would be to put a Magenta color filter in our Frontlight. However, we already discussed the problems with heavily saturated Frontlight color and know that is not a viable solution. Returning to our discussion of Saturation we see that there are myriad options available to us to solve this problem without saturated colors. A Tint of Magenta is commonly known as Lavender. Further, Red is a sympathetic color to Magenta (and the same Hue as the dress). So in addition to a whole range of Lavenders we have many Pinks to choose from as well. We could use a warm Blue but it would need to be selected very carefully to avoid killing (or significantly altering) the dress color.
By using R53 (a very pale Lavender) instead of Clear we can have a huge impact. The Lavender, when set against the L126, will appear as White light. Because of the Lavender our eye is unable to make up the missing color and resigns itself to White. Our shadow color goes away and our look is preserved.
Missing Color Syndrome is most egregious in very colorful shows but can certainly arise in more monochromatic situations. The above case of Missing Color Syndrome is overt. A more subtle version of this phenomenon can be far more deadly. That is when we are working in a palette of Tints. Often it is not readily apparent what the trouble is because nothing is saturated enough to clearly see the missing color. All we know is that something doesn’t look right.
Missing Color Syndrome is often not caused by a single dominant color. Let’s say we have Pink and Blue Booms coming from either side. When we turn on our Clear Frontlight to fill out the figure we notice it taking on a Green tinge. This is due to the Pink and Blue acting in concert to create the shadow color of Magenta (the color Pink and Blue would make if mixed together).
Depending on the saturation of our first two colors the problem will need to be solved with varying saturations of our third color. If our Booms are L201 and G105 we may only need a very slight boost, perhaps an R53 or G109. If our colors are more saturated, like an R68 and L106, then we will need a much more saturated Tint to overcome the eye’s perception of the Clear light as Green.
We can turn this information around and use it to create striking color combinations in our palettes. Tom Skelton’s repertory colors for ABT use these very ideas to their advantage. There, the Backlight color is R70 and the Frontlight is R51. The Green Backlight contrasts strongly with the Lavender Frontlight (they are complementary colors). The effect is to push the Lavender (and the Blues as well) into a warmer and more inviting tone. Perfect for Ballet.
Understanding Missing Color Syndrome and how to cure it is one of the first practical applications of lighting Color Theory. If you missed my post on Hue or Saturation and Chroma I would encourage you to go back and read them through. In later posts I will be exploring Dominant and Recessive Colors, Color Correction, Gray, The Effect of Lamp Type, and Additive vs. Subtractive color mixing.
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. We will continue to build on these concepts throughout this series. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.
Color Theory Basics – Saturation and Chroma
Friday, January 8th, 2010Continuing our discussion of Color Theory we move on from Hue to Saturation and Chroma. These are two closely related but distinct properties of color. Learning these distinctions and understanding them implicitly is what will give us a deep and sophisticated understanding of the uses of color.
In order to discuss these ideas we must first take a quick look at color media for lighting. The three major brands of color filters are Lee, Rosco, and Gam. Each of them produce similar but importantly distinct ranges of colors. Regardless of the particulars of the color media they all operate in a similar manner.
Clear incandescent light emits a range of colors in the visible spectrum. In fact, it is that range which makes us perceive it as White light. A color filter is precisely that, a filter which eliminates all excess wavelengths to allow only those wavelengths desired by the designer to get through. A filter like Lee 201, for example, pulls out many of the wavelengths along the Red and Amber end of the color spectrum to give a clean 5700° K color. We will get more in depth on Color Temperature and lighting design in a later post. But for now it is useful to know that L201 is a pale Daylight color.
If Hue is what we would commonly call the color, then Saturation and Chroma deal with different aspects of brightness. Saturation is how much of a given Hue might be found while Chroma deals with where that Hue falls in a spectrum from Gray to full Chroma. Let’s look at Saturation first.
Saturation is how much of a given Hue is in the filter. Low saturation is closer to White light and colors in that range are called Tints. High saturation has a lot of one particular Hue, are very chromatic, and we call colors in that range Shades.
Tints tend to allow a lot of light to pass through. It can be tempting to forgo heavily saturated colors, particularly deep and rich Congo Blues, because they allow so little light through (1-4% typically) that one might easily choose a lighter saturation for greater transmission. It is important to not be afraid here. Bold color choices demand a degree of risk. Even though there is such a small amount of light actually getting through the filter, the effect can be quite strong. If you need the saturated color, use it.
Since we looked at very saturated and chromatic colors in our exploration of Hue I thought it would be nice to look at some Tints this week. On the left you will see the Rosco CTB filters. You can see the colors ranging from nearly White to a nice middle Blue.
You will also note that while the Hue of these colors is a Blue, they tend to fall closer to Gray than a purely chromatic color. Thus we see here an example of variance by Chroma.
Below we have a low saturation Red, commonly referred to as Pink. What is interesting in this image is the spectral analysis of the filters. The black curve in each image shows us how much of each color in the visible spectrum is contained in the filter. You will note that while the warm end of the color spectrum, from the end of Yellow through Red, remains the same we see a marked shift in the middle Blues through Green and into Yellow. This allows us to see not only how much color is filtered out but also how each filter relates to the other one.
On the right hand side of the picture we see the manufacturer’s name and number for the filter. Then below that is the Transmission. This tells us how much light passes through the filter. The lower the Saturation, the higher the Transmission.
Because all color is relative, nothing is objectively a Tint or a Shade. Comparing G108 and G105 we see that 105 is a Shade of 108. Yet compared with a solid Red like G250 we see that G105 is also a Tint.
We will go much more in depth on the relativity of Tints and Shades when we cover Missing Color Syndrome in the next part of this series. For now, let’s move on to some practical applications.
Returning to our example of the Woman-in-a-Red-Dress we can immediately see an application for color of differing saturation, yet utilizing the same Hue. Our woman enters and the lights change. We turn on a Frontlight special in G250 but immediately notice that while the dress looks fantastic, our Woman has turned rather garish. Loving the dress, but hating how our actor looks, we decide to turn on our G108 Crosslight. The effect now is of a deep red dress with rich and brilliant shadows sculpted by a pale Pink Tint. Because of the G108, our actor’s skin looks beautiful and healthy. We have just achieved a happy costume designer, a happy actor, and a happy director. All with some simple color tricks.
Beware: death by Tints.
While the proper use of tints, as we see above, can be a real life saver, they can also cause us unbelievable headache. I have seen plenty of Yellow and Pink costumes ruined by a “why bother blue” that had just too much Green in it. Colors, and by extension actors, can disappear in what appears to be white light all because of a tint we did not pay enough attention to. Healthy actors can look sick because that Amber front light we fell in love with in the studio has just a hint of Green.
Knowledge of Saturation is a useful tool in the designer’s tool kit. Without such information, our Woman-in-a-Red-Dress would be left looking like some freakish alien, instead of a stunning ingenue. Using Shades to fill in shadows and Tints to highlight can be a great way to sculpt a figure with color.
We need not use the exact same Hue either. G250 which falls pretty solidly in the Red camp could easily be paired with sympathetic colors in tints. Instead of the Magenta and Amber I proposed in the post on Hue, one could use Tints like R53 (a Lavender) and R302 (a pale Rosy Amber).
A solid understanding of Saturation and Chroma will allow you to really start mastering the use of color. If you missed my post on Hue I would encourage you to go back and read it through. In later posts I will be exploring Missing Color Syndrome, Dominant and Recessive Colors, Color Correction, Gray, The Effect of Lamp Type, and Additive vs. Subtractive Color Mixing.
I hope you found this useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. We will continue to build on these concepts throughout this series. Stay tuned.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.
Color Theory Basics – Hue
Monday, January 4th, 2010Our discussion of color theory begins with a look at Hue. Hue is the most basic element of a color and what most people think of when they think “color.” Hue refers to the specific wavelengths of light which hit your retina and cause you to experience sensations like “red” or “yellow” or “green.” Because this is such a foundational element of color theory this post will be a bit long and involved. But it’s worth it!
While the colors of pigments and the colors of light are all the same, their relationships differ between mediums. Primary and Secondary Colors differ when discussing pigment or light. The relationship of these colors, as well as what you can mix to make which colors, vary depending on what medium you are using. The first rule of color: Everything is Relative.
We have all been introduced to a color wheel at some point in our lives. The color wheel is a visual representation of colors and their various relationships to one another. To make a color wheel we draw a circle and then divide it into six even sized wedges. We fill every other wedge with the three Primary Colors; Red, Yellow, and Blue. With the remaining three alternate wedges we put in our Secondary Colors; Orange, Purple, and Green.
Primary colors are those which can not be mixed together through the use of other colors. Secondary Colors are a combination of equal parts of two Primary Colors. Thus Red+Yellow=Orange, Yellow+Blue=Green, and Blue+Red=Purple. The formula of combining colors follows to create Tertiary Colors and so on. The mixing of all these colors will affect both the Hue and the Chroma. Chroma is where the hue lands in a range of Gray to pure Hue.
Special Note: Modern printing techniques using Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (and Black) seem to indicate that this traditional view of color pigment relationships is incorrect. Cyan and Yellow ink, for example, combine to make Green.
With all that said, here is the traditional color wheel we all learned in elementary school art class:
When we mix all three primary colors together in equal parts we get Black. In theory. In reality you tend to get a dark brown and can actually create some wonderful variations in brown by slightly altering the proportions of the different colors used.
The behavior of light is very different. The primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue. While the secondary colors are Cyan, Magenta, and Amber (Yellow). With light Red+Green=Amber, Green+Blue=Cyan, and Blue+Red=Magenta. Not only that but an even mixture of all three primary colors produces White light. In theory. In reality one tends to create shades of Gray.
The lighting Color Wheel looks like this:
It is interesting to note that if we replace the traditional pigment color wheel with the revised one based on CMYK printing we discover that the Primary and Secondary Colors of light and pigment are not just different, but are totally inverted. We can use this to our advantage by turning brightly colored surfaces black with differently colored light as I will discuss below.
The effect of Hue variation on the color of Costumes and Scenery can be tremendous. By knowing the relationship between the Primary and Secondary colors you can create striking effects. What I call “Sympathetic Hues” are colors in light which contain elements of, but are distinct from, the Hue of a Costume or Scenic piece.
Let’s take the classic Woman-in-a-Red-Dress. When she enters at the top of the staircase we really want her to shine. As such we would use colors on the dress which are sympathetic to, or enhance, the dress color. In this case we could use a red like the dress. If we wanted two colors from opposite sides we could use a combination of colors like Magenta and Amber. Here we see the Hue of the light is making the intent of our collaborator (the Costume designer) stronger by reinforcing her bold color statement.
The drawbacks of this are that we could ruin the designer’s intent. This typically happens with heavily saturated light and delicate or intricate costumes or scenery. The color becomes so dominant that we lose the pattern, which may have been for a particular design purpose. One of our primary jobs is to make our collaborator’s work look the best it can (and how they intend it to look!). A deep understanding of color will allow us to do that.
Another drawback to such a broad statement would be the light on the performer. I don’t know many people in real life who have saturated red skin (or blue or green). So while the color might be the right idea for the dress, it might not be the right idea for the performer. The Woman-in-the-Yellow-Dress should not look jaundiced, for example.
A color whose position is opposite another color on the wheel in known as a “Complementary Color.” Complementary colors can create striking and dynamic effects when placed next to one another (or in lighting, when coming from opposing angles). This strength does a curious thing when a pigment is lit with its compliment. A Cyan floor, bathed in Red light, will appear Black to the human eye. We can use this to great effect by obscuring a scenic element until just the right moment of revelation. The risk, of course, is in destroying our collaborator’s intent by deadening the colors of their impeccably designed scenery.
Here we can see the relationship between compliments:
In addition to Primary, Secondary, or Complementary Colors we can also group Hue into one of three categories; Warm, Cool, and Neutral. Warm Hues include Red and Orange. Cool Hues include Blue and Cyan. Neutral Hues include Green and Magenta.
Warm, Cool, and Neutral are not absolute, but relative. In our example above, the red dress is treated as Neutral while a Cool Red (Red with a little blue, but not so much as to be Magenta) light might come from one side and a Warm Red (Red veering towards Amber, but still clearly Red) from the other. In this way we have the effect of complimentary colors (Blue and Yellow) creating a striking effect, while using only Hues which are sympathetic to the color choice of our collaborator.
One final word on Complementary colors and light is worth noting at this point. If you have a single source of light, say the sun at midday, which casts a shadow, the color of the shadow is the complementary color of the light. While this can be hard to see with something so subtle as sunlight, try it some time under a Sodium Vapor (Orange) street light. The shadow should have a faint tinge of Blue or Cyan.
This color effect can be used to the designer’s advantage in myriad ways. One could simply exaggerate the shadow color on stage through a hard directional light in one’s chosen Hue and a soft diffuse light in the shadow color. Alternately this idea could be employed by choosing opposing colors of Head Hi booms.
One of the most famous uses of this color effect is in the lighting method outlined by Stanley McCandless in his A Method of Lighting the Stage in which he suggests using Diagonal Frontlight in complementary colors from opposite directions. His “warm” and “cool” area lights could easily be made more specific using this knowledge of the shadow color of a light.
Hue is a foundational element to our understanding of color but it is by no means all there is. In later posts I will be exploring Saturation and Chroma, Missing Color Syndrome, Dominant and Recessive Colors, Color Correction, Gray, The Effect of Lamp Type, and Additive vs. Subtractive Color Mixing.
Stay Tuned!
I hope you found this post useful. Please take any new ideas and start experimenting. There is a lot more to cover on Hue alone and I may do so in later supplements to this series.
Was this useful to you? Please let me know what you thought in comments. Or leave any questions you may have and I (or other commenters) would be happy to answer.
