Summary: Color in Three Ways

To summarize, we can think of color in three different ways:

  • As a color produced on a computer screen—intensities of red, green, and blue.
  • As a combination of hue, saturation, and lightness.
  • As a point in 3D space with meaningful distances between other points.

Generally, getting all three of these at once is impossible. By converting from space to space, however, we can optimize our programs to match how humans see color, not just how computers display it. Some example scenarios where using one of these more sophisticated spaces might make sense:

  • If you're trying to generate a color scheme from an image by clustering the colors together, consider using a uniform color space to do that clustering.
  • If you're building a website and checking for accessibility requirements, use a good definition of lightness to make sure that your content has sufficient contrast.

A specific application I've employed these spaces in is developing a set of aesthetics for data visualization. Stay tuned for more on that journey.

Summary: Color in Three Ways

To summarize, we can think of color in three different ways:

  • As a color produced on a computer screen—intensities of red, green, and blue.
  • As a combination of hue, saturation, and lightness.
  • As a point in 3D space with meaningful distances between other points.

Generally, getting all three of these at once is impossible. By converting from space to space, however, we can optimize our programs to match how humans see color, not just how computers display it. Some example scenarios where using one of these more sophisticated spaces might make sense:

  • If you're trying to generate a color scheme from an image by clustering the colors together, consider using a uniform color space to do that clustering.
  • If you're building a website and checking for accessibility requirements, use a good definition of lightness to make sure that your content has sufficient contrast.

A specific application I've employed these spaces in is developing a set of aesthetics for data visualization. Stay tuned for more on that journey.