Which are the three primary colors of pigments or dyes?

The method of blending colors depends on the method with which the image is displayed. If the viewers will see the image on a screen made of small lights such as a television or computer monitor, the colors of the individual light emissions add together. These images can be seen with the lighting in the room turned off.

With dyes and pigments, however, the individual elements subtract the light. Light from the room reflects off the images to allow the viewers to see it. With this subtractive light process, the primary colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. Dull black is sometimes added to them to get the shading of the image correct.

Cyan is a type of light blue-green. Magenta is a light pinkish purple. With tempra paint, for example, mixing equal amounts of yellow and red will give an orange color. Mixing yellow with magenta in equal amounts, however, will give a richer and deeper color of orange. Unfortunately, this knowledge is not always taught well at the elementary level. Those who work with computer color printers will recognize that the ink or toner cartridges are cyan, magenta, and yellow.