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subtractive mixture
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colour mixing A Venn diagram shows the three primary colors of light-green, blue, and red-as overlapping circles. Their intersections create cyan, magenta, yellow, and white at the center, illustrating additive color mixing. Diagram showing the subtractive primary colors of pigments: yellow, cyan, and magenta as overlapping rectangles, with secondary colors green, red, and blue where they intersect, and black at the center where all three overlap.
A purple and pink flower in a field.
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subtractive mixture

colour
Also known as: subtractive synthesis
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Quick Summary

colour mixing
colour mixing (Left) The additive mixing of red, green, and blue. (Right) The subtractive mixing of magenta, yellow, and cyan.

Subtractive color mixing involves the absorption and selective transmission or reflection of light. This occurs when colorants, such as pigments or dyes, are mixed. The primary colors in subtractive mixing are cyan, magenta, and yellow. When these colors are mixed, they absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. For example, mixing yellow and blue pigments produces green because green is the only spectral component not strongly absorbed by either pigment. This is in contrast to additive color mixing, where beams of light are combined. The subtractive primaries are sometimes referred to as red, yellow, and blue, but cyan, magenta, and yellow provide a wider range of colors.123

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3 Britannica Sources
  1. colour - The laws of colour mixture
  2. subtractive primary
  3. human eye - Colour mixing

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