Cyan Cyan Cyan ( or rarely, ) is a greenish-blue color. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength of between 490520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue. In the subtractive color system, or CMYK (subtractive), which can be overlaid to produce all colors in paint and color printing, cyan is one of the primary colors, along with magenta, yellow, and black. In the additive color system, or RGB (additive) color model, used to create all the colors on a computer or television display, cyan is made by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light. Cyan is
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