Color space The color-space concept was likely due to Hermann Grassmann, who developed it in two stages. First, he developed the idea of vector space, which allowed the algebraic representation of geometric concepts in formula_1-dimensional space. Fearnley-Sander (1979) describes Grassmann's foundation of linear algebra as follows: With this conceptual background, in 1853, Grassmann published a theory of how colors mix; it and its three color laws are still taught, as Grassmann's law. Colors can be created in printing with color spaces based on the CMYK color model, using the subtractive primary colors of pigment (cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black
Shades of magenta a single wavelength. Humans, being trichromats, can only see as far as 380 nanometers into the spectrum, i.e., as far as violet. The hue magenta is the complement of green: magenta pigments absorb green light, thus magenta and green are opposite colors. Before "printer's magenta" was invented in the 1890s for CMYK printing, and "electric magenta" was invented in the 1980s for computer displays, these two artificially engineered colors were preceded by the color displayed at right, which is the color originally called "magenta" made from coal tar dyes in the year 1859. Besides being called original magenta, magenta dye