Optics
Color Mixing with Light
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Red, green and blue are the primary colors of light. When beams of colored light overlap, they mix additively:
- Red + Green = Yellow
- Green + Blue = Cyan
- Blue + Red = Magenta
- Red + Green + Blue = White
This is different from mixing paints or inks, which works by subtractive color mixing.
Look at each overlap region. Can you identify all the new colors made from the three lights?
Additional Information
This is called additive color mixing, the opposite of mixing paint, which gets darker as you add more colors.
Your phone, TV, and computer screen all build every color you see from just tiny red, green, and blue lights.
Red and green light overlapping makes yellow — there’s no “yellow light” involved at all, just your eye reading the mix that way.