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WPI Technical Theatre Handbook: Light Mixing
 
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Light Mixing

With pigments, if you mix equal amounts of pure red, yellow and blue, you end up with black. Light can be mixed in a similar fashion, with the primary difference being that light mixes towards white rather than black. That is to say, with equal amounts of pure red, green and blue, white is the final result. This type of mixing of light is called additive mixing. It should be noted that complementary colors mix together to form white. Figure 5.10 provides an effective way to visualize additive color mixing.

Figure 5.10: Additive mixing of the primary colors. Assuming equal color purity and intensity of the three primaries, they will mix to form white (center).
\begin{figure}\psfig{file=lighting/colormix.eps,width=4.5in}\end{figure}



Steve Richardson 2000-07-06

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