Colors and human eyes

DiDequ wrote on 11/9/2013, 3:06 PM
I have been working almost 27 years with color management.

Some people say a human can hardly see 40 000 different colors, some say much more. (millions, which I do not believe)
Specialists do not agree on this subject.
Probably because we are not equal concerning this subject.
This is what I learned several years ago.

Does anyone know a recent good and reliable book / internet website explaining the human vision ?

Comments

Rainer wrote on 11/9/2013, 3:56 PM
It's more complicated than that, and relies on the probability of an individual detecting a color difference, no matter how small. There is no simple absolute physiological limit. You could start by looking at color vision in Wikipedia, and Google color signal detection for more complete explanations. I'm inclined to think 40000 light spectrum colors is enough for our purposes.
farss wrote on 11/9/2013, 4:38 PM
To further confound the topic there's this: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2002/may/30/medicalscience.research

In summary if you develop cataracts and get new artificial lenses fitted in your eyes you might be able to see into the UV spectrum, neat.

Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 11/9/2013, 5:43 PM
Years ago one of my friends and I were watching his TV and all the facial colors
were pure orange and oversaturated. I asked him why don't you adjust your TV to look right? And he said it was perfect. I said you have to be kidding. After many harsh words I said let me see your glasses. After I put on his glasses everything looked great. I couldn't believe that a pair of glasses could affect color that much. Well that was about 30 years ago and he is still probably watching an orange TV picture.
JJK
richard-amirault wrote on 11/9/2013, 9:21 PM
Different human eyes see differently. You can post a number, and maybe that will be a mean or average but there will be those who can see more or less. What is the mean? I have no idea.

I, for instance, have poor low light vision, less than the average person. (yes, I know this is about color vision, but the principal is the same)
PeterWright wrote on 11/9/2013, 9:37 PM
Whenever I encounter the concept of numbers of colours I wonder who draws the boundary between one colour and another.

For instance, If you change RGB from 25, 11, 71 to 25, 11, 72, have you moved to a new colour? If so, there's more than 15,000,000 already.
ushere wrote on 11/9/2013, 10:32 PM
when i was young i saw more green. middle age increased the blues. old age has me seeing more red.....
PeterDuke wrote on 11/10/2013, 4:35 PM
Anything to do with political parties?
ushere wrote on 11/10/2013, 4:51 PM
now peter, i hadn't thought of that - it was more along emotional lines - but i think it probably covers political views too ;-)

Serena Steuart wrote on 11/10/2013, 5:58 PM
That's intriguing. How have you kept track of the changes in perception?
ushere wrote on 11/10/2013, 7:45 PM
i wish i could answer that with some measurable criteria serena, but unfortunately i can't, unless we can correlate emotions to colours ;-)

on a more serious note though, my wife's sense of colour is pretty impressive - she can not only mix oil paints to match any existing colour exactly, but years ago our optician (who also happened to teach at sydney uni) took her in into the labs there and ran a colour test on her, along the lines of peter's proposition above. ie. change RGB from 25, 11, 71 to 25, 11, 72. i don't think it was THAT exacting, but he was astounded by her ability to note changes so subtle that no one else could perceive them. ie. her saying 'slightly redder'
Rory Cooper wrote on 11/11/2013, 4:48 AM
Colour/emotion it is a two way street = colours affect your emotions but also your emotional circumstance will affect the way you perceive a certain colour, for example black, at a high end function could appear elegant even sexy but at a funeral empty and depressing = same colour different circumstances different perception.