Sunshine Challenge 2020 - Prompt 2 (Orange)

[greerwatson]

Orange is one of my favourite colours, along with brown, which is derived from it. I think rust/copper/tawny shades are probably my absolute favourite. In fact, when I bought a little rust-coloured velvet cushion once, and my mother said, "But you've got cushions," I just pulled it out and she said, "Oh, of course you bought it: it's Greer-coloured."


We all learn young that RED + YELLOW = ORANGE. In the limited palette of a child's paint box, we also find that this is true in practice as well as theory. It ain't always true! I mean, try mixing red and blue to make purple: given the shades available to most kids, all you ever get is purplish mud.


It has always puzzled me, though, why so many colour charts and rainbow sequences (say on flags or in ads) show as "orange" a colour that is very much closer to red than yellow. Often, it's almost red! You'd think they'd pick a shade that is bang in the middle.

Instead, all too often, it looks more like this:





Now, obviously if you compare the middle colour to red, it looks "un-red":





But, if you put it side by side with the yellow without red for contrast, then it actually looks more like a light red. Certainly, it's far redder than anything I'd call a true orange.





Surely, what you want to use for "orange" is a shade that contrasts equally either way. You want something that is clearly different when compared with red:





And also clearly different when compared with yellow:





So why do people so often use a very dark orange in making rainbows and colour wheels and the like?

Isn't this how it should be?

Comments

[cornerofmadness]

Orange and brown really evoke Autumn, don't they?

[greerwatson]

Absolutely.

[enemytosleep]

The fact that your mom referred to the cushion as Greer-colored is so cute and so telling. I think a lot of us have a favorite color, or at least had one as a child. I'd also never considered the orange issue (about how it's often more of an orange-red than a bright mix of red and yellow). I'll probably notice that a lot more now in my day to day!

the wrong orange

[oldtoadwoman]

I used to work for a company that had orange as part of the company logo. Bright orange-orange. I forget the Pantone #, but they had to order it special any time they wanted something printed in the company color. If you print out "orange" using a standard printer (even a commercial-grade one at a print shop), you'll get a color that's more muddy brownish-pumpkin or reddish-orange (even if the digital file looks like a vibrant orange). It drove my boss crazy, because she hated the muddy orange color and, of course, it cost extra to have the print shop print the custom job with the special-order Pantone # ink.

She pointed out that the old MasterCharge logo (before it became MasterCard) used to be bright orange, but they gave up and changed it to reddish-orange to save on advertising printing costs.



One of those things I never would have noticed if she hadn't pointed it out to me, but now I notice the wrong shade of orange everywhere.

Re: the wrong orange

[greerwatson]

Hah! So that's maybe the answer. Frankly, I think they should fix the printers. But that's me.

Re: the wrong orange

[oldtoadwoman]

Yeah, it's the cheap cyan-magenta-yellow print cartridge system. You can make a lot of other colors using those as your primary colors (plus black) inks, but you just can't nail a true vibrant orange using it.

[silveradept]

I wonder why those oranges are more red. It sounds like an issue with dyes or lights or someone stepping through the hex codes and not recognizing that this particular jump doesn't actually land on a recognizable orange.

[greerwatson]

Well, oldtoadwoman (see thread just above you) seems to think it has to do with ink jet printers; and it sounds plausible. Especially if there's any chance of residue of the other inks getting mixed in; but I can't say on that matter since I don't use a colour printer myself, having an ancient but very efficient and hard-working B&W laser printer.

As for hex codes, if you limit yourself to "safe" colours, #FF6600 is a bit dark and #FF9900 a bit light, at least to my eyes, though both are definitely orange.

[silveradept]

That's certainly a possibility of why the orange isn't working. I'm used to CYMK being a bit more able to do things than an RGB tri-color cartridge.

I do want to know what kind of printers can have their colors swapped at will and be reconfigured.