People have been working to understand colour for centuries. Because colour plays such a large role in many aspects of life — from art to commerce — people need reliable ways to communicate about colour. Colour measurement instruments make it possible to consistently quantify, compare and reproduce colours, essentially eliminating miscommunication between designers, manufacturers and organizations that need to define specific shades.
The possibilities colour measurement offers today arose from years of study and development. When you understand the history of colour measurement devices, you can better understand how they work and the benefits they offer. Let’s take a look at how far the colour measurement field has come.
Early Discoveries in Colour Measurement
Before people could develop ways to measure colour, they needed to understand what colour is and how it is perceived. As a result, some of the earliest discoveries in colour measurement involve the nature of light. In the mid-1600s, Isaac Newton used prisms to show that refraction could break white light into the constituent components of the visible light spectrum — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. In 1692, he would write “Opticks,” which would serve as a basic, if imperfect, foundation for colour research.
In the early 1800s, Thomas Young proposed the idea that red, green and blue colour receptors in the human eye work together to create the wide variety of colours we perceive. Later, James Clerk Maxwell furthered this theory by showing that red, green and blue light could combine to create almost any desired colour. Although Maxwell was not the first person to suggest that light acts as a wave, he did show that those wavelengths could be quantified as a form of electromagnetic energy in nanometers.
