> The green ⬤ is…can you even call it a green ⬤? Nadieh’s questioned green is much closer to “unique green” (a typical observer wouldn’t think it looked partly

> The green ⬤ is…can you even call it a green ⬤? Nadieh’s questioned green is much closer to “unique green” (a typical observer wouldn’t think it looked partly blue or yellow)† than the CSS color “green” (based on the display’s “G” primary), which is shifted way toward yellow and should properly be called “yellowish green” or the like. It’s also much less colorful (the hues would be easier to compare if both had the same colorfulness). Likewise Nadieh’s red closer to unique red (and much less colorful) than the RGB “R” primary, which should really be called “orangish red”. > Avoid pure colors All three of the colors in the “better” picture are close to unique hues (yellow, blue, green). All three of the colors in the “not ideal” category are based on the display’s primaries (“orangish red” R, “purplish blue” B, “yellowish green” G), not at all close to “pure”. †: Unique hues vary from person to person, and unique green in particular has wide inter-observer variability. * * * The extremely poor naming of CSS/HTML colors and the rather arbitrary constraints imposed by 3-primary RGB emissive displays and inadequate/misleading graphical tools for picking colors have seriously skewed many people’s color concepts. To restate the main idea from this article: don’t use overly intense colors. Stay away from CSS named colors, because they are based on the furthest extremes of the display’s gamut, and are overly colorful.