Secondary color

Secondary colors are colors made from two primary colors. Secondary colors can be made by mixing dyes, such as ink or paint, together. They can also be made when two lights shine into each other.

After mixing two colors, a secondary color is made.

When mixed with a primary color, a secondary color makes a teritary color.

Secondary colors in color models

RGB

RGB is the color model of light. In it, the secondary colors are yellow, mixed from red and green, magenta, mixed from red and blue, and cyan, mixed from green and blue.

Computer screens use the primary colors of the RGB color model to show secondary colors. Each screen has tiny pixels that light up in different primary colors, which blur together to look like a secondary color is being shown.

CMY

CMY is the color model of dyes. The colors in it are like the ones in RGB, but their places are switched; cyan, magenta, and yellow are the primary colors, while red, green, and blue are the secondary colors instead.

Printers use inks based on the CMY primary colors to make the secondary colors that are on the pictures they print. However, the inks are usually not perfect, so a fourth ink is used with most printers. This is called CMYK.

When CMY colors are mixed together, the secondary colors are red, green, and blue, which are the primary colors of the RGB model.

Other models

RYB, or red yellow blue, is an older idea of what the primary and secondary colors are. It was once thought that the secondary colors are orange, mixed from red and yellow, green, mixed from yellow and blue, and purple, mixed from red and blue. This way of mixing colors was used for dyes before CMY became widely used. The blue in RYB is usually more of an azure color, which makes their likeness more clear.

This color wheel shows a set of colors that were once thought to be primary and secondary colors.