2.7M views · Aug 28, 2019 · 22:19 · 1 HN recommender · 3 mentions · discussed 2020–2021
Technology Connections explains how RGB light and color work, from hue and saturation to color vision and how objects appear under different lighting. It uses a studio setup with colored lights to demonstrate the effects.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN points to it as an accessible explanation of how color and reflected light behave, especially under LED lighting.
“This video from Technology Connections helps explain”HN comment, 2020
“This video from Technology Connections helps explain”
Explains how reflected light and color work with RGB
This works for direct illumination (eg an LCD screen) but fails for reflected light (eg a light). This video from Technology Connections helps explain this video
“Technology Connections has a discussion”
Discussion of how color works
Short answer: No. We (the majority anyway, as some are colourblind) only perceive lightness, reddish, greenish, and bluish. The brain uses the info and effectively synthesises the image in our brains. Long answer: Colour is a very rabbithole topic but Captain Disillusion has a summary of it ( link ) and Technology Connections has a discussion ( this video ).
Backs claim about how objects look under LED light
Why would you do that I don't know, but for me personally the reason is that LEDs tend to strobe (sometimes noticeably to peripheral vision) and do not emit a smooth continuous spectrum—unlike incandescent bulbs, they produce a narrow, spiky spectrum[0] and objects in your room may look unnatural as they reflect it[1]; this may be especially bad with some RGB LEDs but fundamentally is a property of all LED lights because physics. [0] link [1] this video
