COLOUR

Colour

COLOUR

Of our five senses, vision provides the normally sighted with the greatest amount of
information about surroundings and colour plays a major role in this information
gathering.

The concept of colour has fascinated man since time immemorial. It is well known
that people expressed themselves via cave paintings some 15,000-30,000 years ago.
Intricately coloured potteries dating from 5,000 years ago are available and, from
around 1,500BC, advances began to be made in the manufacture and application of
colorants in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Later, as Hellenism culture developed, the first
theories of colour and aesthetics flourished in 250-500BC; these persisted until the
seventeenth century and the quest of European scholars for scientific understanding.
Our current ideas of the theoretical basis of colour mixing and of colour vision have
as their basis, fundamental experiments and philosophies developed during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.2

Colour is a highly faceted phenomenon which spans nature, science and culture, as
evidenced by the fact that the Concise Oxford Dictionary lists two different meanings
for the verb 'colour' and thirteen for the noun.2

Color can be defined as result of the physical modification of light by colorants as

observed by the human eye and interpreted by the brain. The four preceding nouns
describe the complex nature of color. Light is physical, colorants are chemical, the
eye is physiologic, and the brain, of course, is psychologic. Actually, the eye as a
receptor interfaced with the brain as an interpreter is psychophysical in nature.10

PHYSICS OF COLOR
Sir Isaac Newton was the first to break down the physics of color. He demonstrated
that light is made up of energy with differing wavelengths. The universe is considered
to comprise a magnetic field of positive and negative charges, constantly vibrating
and producing electromagnetic waves. Each of these has a different wavelength and
speed of vibration and together they form the electromagnetic spectrum. About 40%
of the colours contained in sunlight. So although white light appears colourless and

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intangible, it is made up of distinct colour vibrations, which have not only

wavelengths but also a ‘corpuscular structure.

Newton described resulting continuous series of colors as a spectrum and named

these colors in the following order: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and
violet, as represented by commonly used mnemonic association Roy G. Biv. These
wavelengths are perceived by three types of color receptors (called cones) in the
human eye as variations of red, green and blue light, hence the term visible light
spectrum. In physical terms, the wavelengths of visible light range from
approximately 400 to 700 nm.1

The colour of a self-luminous object is called self-luminous colour and can be natural
or artificial. The colour of an illuminated object is called object colour and can arise
from reflected or scattered light. The energy carried by waves stimulates the receptors
in the human retina, producing colour stimuli. This gives rise to the three primary
colours:

All colours encountered in nature can be reproduced by combining light of these three
wavelengths in varying intensities. Colour perceived may depend on amount of light
reflected.
• 100% = white light
• 0% = black
• 50% = grey

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A Perfectly black object would A red object reflects red light and absorbs
absorb all wavelength of light all other wavelengths

A perfectly white object would reflect all

wavelengths of light

FUNDAMENTALS OF COLOUR SCIENCE

Nassau has distinguished fifteen specific, colour-producing mechanisms which can be
collected into five groups, in which the colour originates from:
• Simple excitations and vibrations (flames, vapour lamps, water)
•Transitions involving ligand (crystal) fields (transition metal compounds,
fluorescence, and emerald)
• Transitions between molecular orbitals (dyes, sapphire)
• Transitions involving energy bands (metals, semiconductors, phosphors)
• Geometric and optical effects (rainbows, blue sky, soap bubbles). 78

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The description of the colour of an object refers to a sensation experienced by a

particular observer. In simple terms, the perception of the colour of a reflective object
depends upon the combination of three elements, namely a light source, an object and
an observer which are related:

• Light source: illuminates the object

• Object: reflects, absorbs or transmits the incident light to the observer
• Observer: perceives the reflected light.

The properties of the object, especially how it modifies the light reflected from it,
contribute to the perceived colour; an object viewed under a different light source or,
when viewed by a different observer, may appear different in colour. Obviously, it
follows that if we take any one of these three components away, there is no colour.2

LIGHT SOURCE
Color perception depends on the quality of light illuminating the object. The ideal
light source is natural light, occurring around mid-day for accurate color comparison.
The time of the day, month and weather conditions affect the color of sunlight. If the
light source changes, then the light reflected from an object changes too; in that case,
a different color is perceived.

Color temperature, spectral reflectance curves and color rendering index (CRI) are all
used to measure the capacity to reproduce standard daylight (CRI over 90 is
recommended for color matching). 1

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OBSERVER
This is the human eye/brain system which constitutes the human colour vision
apparatus. In essence, the retina comprises two types of light-sensitive receptors,
namely rods and cones. The rods are responsible for scotopic(low light level,
monochromatic) vision while cones are responsible for photopic(medium/high light
level, full colour) vision. Three types of cone receptor cells (commonly referred to as
S (short wavelength), M (medium wavelength) and L (long wavelength)) are present
in the retina and vary in their sensitivity to light in three different wavelength bands,
peak sensitivities being in the blue (approx. 440 nm), green (approx. 545 nm) and
yellow-green (approx. 585 nm) regions of the spectrum.

The signals generated by the cone receptor cells are processed by the brain which
converts the signals into sensations that we interpret as red, green and blue colours
(and their combinations). Cones (and rods) are not uniformly distributed throughout
the retina and the fovea, (a small depression in the retina) contains mainly cones at
high density. The fovea is the most sensitive part of the eye and is always at the centre
of our focus of view. Such is the small size of the fovea that only small samples (of
the order of less than 2 cm viewed at about 25 cm distance from the eye) will be
focused within the fovea area. It is commonly held that such is the calibre of the
human eye/brain system that the normally sighted can distinguish some 3–5 million
different colours.2

OBJECT

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Light can interact with objects in various ways. It can be reflected from the surface of
a body or it can be absorbed by the body or transmitted through the body. Light can
also be refracted if its speed of propagation changes from one medium to another.2

REFLECTION
In the case of any body, if the air to material surface is smooth then we obtain a small
amount of specular (mirror-like) reflection at the air/surface boundary. Natural teeth
exhibit high specular (gloss) reflection especially when wet, this being manifest as
white reflected light. If the surface has roughness then diffuse reflected light is
scattered from the boundary.2

Reflection of light

TRANSMISSION
Natural teeth are not opaque but, rather, are translucent, which means that any light
which enters the body of the tooth is only partly absorbed. The non-absorbed light
within the body can then be transmitted inside the tooth and undergo scattering before
emerging from the tooth. The internally scattered light that emerges from the tooth

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contributes to the reflected light; this is termed the body reflectance. This
phenomenon is responsible for the characteristic illumination of the gingival region
around the tooth.2

Transmission of light
ABSORPTION
Any light which is not reflected and enters the opaque body and does not emerge,
having been absorbed and converted to heat.
The reflection/absorption characteristics of a given material can be measured
instrumentally and expressed as the reflectance factor which runs from zero to one
(the reflectance factor is the ratio of the amount of light reflected from a sample to
that reflected from a reference white standard); in practice, the term is multiplied by
100 and expressed as a percentage.

An ideal black sample absorbs the majority of the incident (white) light falling upon it
and reflects very little whereas an ideal white sample reflects the majority of the
incident light falling upon it and absorbs very little.2

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A perfectly black object would absorb

all wavelengths of light

PIGMENT COLOURS
Pigment colors contribute to the hues of an object. Because these colors are perceived
through either transmission or reflection of light, they are essentially the same as the
subtractive colors.

THE PRIMARY COLORS:

Red, Yellow, Blue the primary pigment colors are the same as the subtractive
primaries, these are the colors that are perceived when one of the RGB wavelengths is
absorbed. Red is perceived when green is absorbed; yellow is perceived when blue is
absorbed; and blue is perceived when red is absorbed.1

SECONDARY COLORS:
Orange, Green, Violet the secondary colors are formed by combining two of the
primary colors. For example, red and yellow create orange; yellow and blue create
green; and blue and red create violet.

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS
Complementary colors are those that, when combined in equal proportions, form a
dull gray that absorbs and reflects/transmits all wavelengths in equal amounts, as
shown in. For example, orange and blue are complementary colors because orange is
a combination of red and yellow, which absorb green and blue, respectively, while
blue absorbs red. Other pairs of complementary colors include red/green and yellow/
violet.1

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There are two types of color, additive and subtractive.

ADDITIVE COLOR: These are the color obtained by emitted light and are
associated with television and computer displays. The primary additive colors are
Red, Blue and Green and the secondary additive colors are Cyan, Yellow and
Magenta. When additive primary colors are combined they produce White.67

SUBTRACTIVE COLOR: These are the colors associated with reflected light and
are used in pigments for making paints, inks, fabrics etc. The primary subtractive
colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue and the secondary subtractive colors are Green,
Violet and Orange. When subtractive primary colors are combined they produce
Black.67

COLOR WHEEL
The primary and secondary colors can be arranged in the form of a wheel in which the
individual colors form parts of the rim of the wheel. This arrangement has been called
the color wheel or color circle. It is produced by bending the spectrum of light into a
circle. Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel are termed
complementary colors. For example, the secondary color blue is opposite the primary
color yellow and is thus the complementary color of yellow in the subtractive color
system. The result of mixing a color with its complementary color is achromatic
(colorless). Mixing of the three primary colors also produces an achromatic result.

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While the color wheel provides a basis for understanding the mixing of colors, it does
not allow an accurate description of color. 3

IMPORTANCE OF COLOR IN DENTISTRY

The study of color is an integral part of esthetic dentistry. If the color of a restoration
is off, even slightly, the mistake can be glaringly evident. It looks false, and the
patient is unhappy. However, luckily for us, there is a true science behind the art of
understanding and communicating color effectively. Once the processes of color
perception and reproduction are well understood, they can be applied to dentistry,
specifically to shade matching techniques. The important concepts include pigment
colors and the dimensions of color that must be considered when matching shades3.

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