5 ms·

""" When compared with the synthetic dyes that are used today in essentially all our clothes and textiles, nature's version is almost always inexplicably better

""" When compared with the synthetic dyes that are used today in essentially all our clothes and textiles, nature's version is almost always inexplicably better. It's the visual equivalent of a peach ripened by the tree, or a tomato baked in sunshine. Some lost part of you recognises that this is how it's supposed to be. Natural dyes are no different. """ Very poetic. But is there any truth to this or is it just poor journalism?

malfist 5y ago
Just your general "technology bad, hard way better" luddite ramblings. Just because something takes more work to do it that way, doesn't mean it's better.
- ink404 5y ago
  This is clearly something you'd need to see in person to understand before making a statement like that.
- deertick1 5y ago
  Totally disagree. 1) im 99% sure that some colors we cannot or do not precisely recreate using non natural dyes. Just thinjing about the complexity of organic material: that is bound to produce subtle textures and such that are not easily mimicked. 2) there is a spiritually satisfying element to recreating something in the original or natural way when a more complex way may be easier 3) it is important to preserve the heritage of human innovation. These techniques and recipes ought to be preserved for historical and sociological reasons, as well as in the event that shit goes to pot one day, we may still have some people that know how to make dyes from scratch.
- Aardwolf 5y ago
  I just saw a rose garden with differently colored roses, and some made me think: this is a color a computer screen can't show
  - Igelau 5y ago
    I've run into this before in watercolor. RGB seems like such a massive color space until suddenly it isn't.
  - evanb 5y ago
    Relevant: "I can't show you how pink this pink is." by Tom Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM Also relevant, his piece on "The Library of Rare Colors" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA&t=6s
km3r 5y ago
Many artificial dyes use CYMK dye colors to build up to the final color when they are mixed by our eyes. Natural dyes will often truly be that color or a unique combination of non-CYMK colors. The result of this is non pure white light will reflect off the surface of the dyed object in different ways. It's a similar reason many LED lights look different than natural sunlight, with the LED lights using a combination of RGB.
- marto1 5y ago
  Could that mean that animals with different sight systems see gibberish when presented with something artificially dyed ? My thinking is this could affect visual cues for e.g. training.
  - hammock 5y ago
    Depends on how their brains process the colors. Basically what parent commenter is saying, is the color systems we use do not cover the entire gamut of visible light. Visualization of this: https://imgr.search.brave.com/OsaL9Hps1NYNjbK4zhGnStZmlMNT3t2cql65K18sipA/fit/900/582/ce/1/aHR0cDovL3dlYmNv/bWljYWxsaWFuY2Uu/Y29tL3dwLWNvbnRl/bnQvdXBsb2Fkcy8y/MDE0LzExL2dhbXV0/LWNyZWF0ZXNwYWNl/LmpwZw https://imgr.search.brave.com/OsaL9Hps1NYNjbK4zhGnStZmlMNT3t...
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    Absolutely. Human sight reduces all visible light down to the three red/green/blue buckets. Other species will have different buckets, and can easily see colors we perceive as identical as completely different. I believe we have better color vision that most animals though, so the opposite is usually the case.
    - wahern 5y ago
      Some humans enjoy tetrachromacy. There's an article floating around where one such woman mentions that in her world she sees mismatched colors everywhere; colors that to everybody else look identical (e.g. on a shirt and pants, or two walls) but which to her look different, sometimes significantly. IIRC, the fourth spectrum peak isn't that far away from one of the others, so I assume this effect is probably exaggerated by artificial dyes that reflect in relatively narrow bands. EDIT: Here's the reported anecdote I was remembering: > "I have always had polite disagreements with people about shades of colours," she says. When clothes shopping for instance, she often finds that apparently matching tops and skirts seem to be a different shade to her, clashing horribly--even though no one else seems to notice it. Her sensitivity can sometimes be baffling to those around: when helping to restore a house, she once rejected 32 paint samples before settling on the right shade. "The beiges were too yellow and not blue enough, not cool enough; some of the almonds were too orangey," she says--distinctions that were much to the confusion of her building contractor. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-super-human-vision https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-s...
sp332 5y ago
Synthetic and natural dyes each have their advantages, which is why they are still used in various applications. But which kind you like better is obviously a judgement call.
mc32 5y ago
I think it’s more poetic. Yes, the results may be different and they have values that synthetics don’t possess, more variability for example or less colorfastness, but to say that overall they are inexplicably better, is overselling it. Sure, I like indigo, woad and maybe carrots or beets for Easter eggs but that doesn’t mean they are better. There may be preferences, yes. Better? That depends on use.
throw0101a 5y ago
As a sibling comment noted, there are only a limited number of artificial dyes in existence, so what you see in the natural world may have more colours. See for example the splash that a 'new blue' made recently: * "The first blue pigment discovered in 200 years is now commercially available", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 * "YInMn, the First New Blue Pigment in Two Centuries", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25963292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25963292
- crazygringo 5y ago
  That's not really relevant here though. The set of synthetic dyes we have does a pretty fantastic job at covering all the colors seen in the natural world, plus a whole lot more. We go way beyond the natural world, in fact, when you look at the bright/fluorescent colors you see in an athletic clothing store, as I mentioned in another comment. What makes that 'new blue' you refer to special has nothing to do with how we perceive it directly -- it's trivial to recreate that hue. It's useful for the very specific use case of mixing colors while oil painting. It's for artists trying to blend colors.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
colechristensen 5y ago
A lot of it is poetry, but there is a grain of truth to it. There are only a handful of artificial dyes and they'll usually be engineered to make up a colorspace which is always smaller than what your eye can perceive. For a more concrete example, no matter how nice your camera and printer are, the colors which can be reproduced are currently always restricted compared to the source material (reality), and not just in a matter of there being some small error, there are colors your eyes can see in nature which can't be printed with state of the art tech. Especially with textiles, the colorspaces available with normal technology are quite a bit smaller than in nature. Whether "natural" or "synthetic" (the distinction can be a bit silly) a substance will react to light in its own unique way. The number of different substances with different responses is obviously very large in nature, technology tries to recreate a full spectrum of color with only a few substances in combination, the result is naturally not as rich.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > […] there are colors your eyes can see in nature which can't be printed with state of the art tech. As an example see sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProtoPhoto RGB, Rec. 2020/2100, etc: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020
crazygringo 5y ago
Short answer: it's poor journalism. Long answer: there are mainly three factors that contribute to inaccurate color reproduction. The first is limited color gamut. That's not really a factor in dying fibers though -- we have plenty of synthetic dyes for things like bright orange, fluorescent green, etc. Just visit any athletic clothing store. And while yes nature has all sorts of shiny bright iridescence caused by diffraction etc., those properties are destroyed as soon as the material is smushed. You can't turn gorgeous insect wings into dye. The second is that while our eyes perceive only RGB in response to a wide spectrum, there are an infinite number of spectral patterns that we ultimately perceive as e.g. a certain orange. An orange dye from one source (natural or synthetic) will have a different source spectrum from pretty much any other orange dye (natural or synthetic). BUT it's pretty easy to match the color we perceive perfectly for a single lighting condition, e.g. sunlight. But this brings us to: The third factor, which is the spectrum of lighting. The spectra of sunlight, of fluorescent light, of LED light, is all different. The color we perceive is essentially the spectrum of the light source multiplied by the spectrum of the dye. Therefore when we change the lighting spectrum, this can change the ultimate RGB color we perceive -- so that two orange dyes that appeared literally identical in sunlight now appear subtly different under a fluorescent light. So it is true that different dyes behave slightly differently under different lighting conditions. But there's no better or worse here, and there's absolutely no "peach ripened by a tree" or "how it's supposed to be". That's complete and utter nonsense. The solution for good color matching isn't dyes from natural sources -- it's balanced, full-spectrum white lighting.
- hammock 5y ago
  >And while yes nature has all sorts of shiny bright iridescence caused by diffraction etc., those properties are destroyed as soon as the material is smushed. You can't turn gorgeous insect wings into dye. Seems like a great technological opportunity for someone to figure out. Recently I advised someone not to buy granite countertops sight unseen, since the way they look in person is so different from the way they look in a photo - a photo completely misses the reflections, iridescence and other three-dimensional aspects of the actual product.
  - 5y ago
canadianfella 5y ago
It’s bullshit.
IncRnd 5y ago
According to my eyes, it is true. The colors he works with are beautiful and visually different from synthetic dyes.
swayvil 5y ago
Well there was a study.

malfist 5y ago

Just your general "technology bad, hard way better" luddite ramblings. Just because something takes more work to do it that way, doesn't mean it's better.

ink404 5y ago
This is clearly something you'd need to see in person to understand before making a statement like that.
deertick1 5y ago
Totally disagree. 1) im 99% sure that some colors we cannot or do not precisely recreate using non natural dyes. Just thinjing about the complexity of organic material: that is bound to produce subtle textures and such that are not easily mimicked. 2) there is a spiritually satisfying element to recreating something in the original or natural way when a more complex way may be easier 3) it is important to preserve the heritage of human innovation. These techniques and recipes ought to be preserved for historical and sociological reasons, as well as in the event that shit goes to pot one day, we may still have some people that know how to make dyes from scratch.
Aardwolf 5y ago
I just saw a rose garden with differently colored roses, and some made me think: this is a color a computer screen can't show
- Igelau 5y ago
  I've run into this before in watercolor. RGB seems like such a massive color space until suddenly it isn't.
- evanb 5y ago
  Relevant: "I can't show you how pink this pink is." by Tom Scott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM Also relevant, his piece on "The Library of Rare Colors" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApTzWboLrA&t=6s

km3r 5y ago

Many artificial dyes use CYMK dye colors to build up to the final color when they are mixed by our eyes. Natural dyes will often truly be that color or a unique combination of non-CYMK colors. The result of this is non pure white light will reflect off the surface of the dyed object in different ways. It's a similar reason many LED lights look different than natural sunlight, with the LED lights using a combination of RGB.

marto1 5y ago
Could that mean that animals with different sight systems see gibberish when presented with something artificially dyed ? My thinking is this could affect visual cues for e.g. training.
- hammock 5y ago
  Depends on how their brains process the colors. Basically what parent commenter is saying, is the color systems we use do not cover the entire gamut of visible light. Visualization of this: https://imgr.search.brave.com/OsaL9Hps1NYNjbK4zhGnStZmlMNT3t2cql65K18sipA/fit/900/582/ce/1/aHR0cDovL3dlYmNv/bWljYWxsaWFuY2Uu/Y29tL3dwLWNvbnRl/bnQvdXBsb2Fkcy8y/MDE0LzExL2dhbXV0/LWNyZWF0ZXNwYWNl/LmpwZw https://imgr.search.brave.com/OsaL9Hps1NYNjbK4zhGnStZmlMNT3t...
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Absolutely. Human sight reduces all visible light down to the three red/green/blue buckets. Other species will have different buckets, and can easily see colors we perceive as identical as completely different. I believe we have better color vision that most animals though, so the opposite is usually the case.
  - wahern 5y ago
    Some humans enjoy tetrachromacy. There's an article floating around where one such woman mentions that in her world she sees mismatched colors everywhere; colors that to everybody else look identical (e.g. on a shirt and pants, or two walls) but which to her look different, sometimes significantly. IIRC, the fourth spectrum peak isn't that far away from one of the others, so I assume this effect is probably exaggerated by artificial dyes that reflect in relatively narrow bands. EDIT: Here's the reported anecdote I was remembering: > "I have always had polite disagreements with people about shades of colours," she says. When clothes shopping for instance, she often finds that apparently matching tops and skirts seem to be a different shade to her, clashing horribly--even though no one else seems to notice it. Her sensitivity can sometimes be baffling to those around: when helping to restore a house, she once rejected 32 paint samples before settling on the right shade. "The beiges were too yellow and not blue enough, not cool enough; some of the almonds were too orangey," she says--distinctions that were much to the confusion of her building contractor. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-super-human-vision https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140905-the-women-with-s...

sp332 5y ago

Synthetic and natural dyes each have their advantages, which is why they are still used in various applications. But which kind you like better is obviously a judgement call.

mc32 5y ago

I think it’s more poetic. Yes, the results may be different and they have values that synthetics don’t possess, more variability for example or less colorfastness, but to say that overall they are inexplicably better, is overselling it. Sure, I like indigo, woad and maybe carrots or beets for Easter eggs but that doesn’t mean they are better. There may be preferences, yes. Better? That depends on use.

throw0101a 5y ago

As a sibling comment noted, there are only a limited number of artificial dyes in existence, so what you see in the natural world may have more colours. See for example the splash that a 'new blue' made recently: * "The first blue pigment discovered in 200 years is now commercially available", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25807199 * "YInMn, the First New Blue Pigment in Two Centuries", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25963292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25963292

crazygringo 5y ago
That's not really relevant here though. The set of synthetic dyes we have does a pretty fantastic job at covering all the colors seen in the natural world, plus a whole lot more. We go way beyond the natural world, in fact, when you look at the bright/fluorescent colors you see in an athletic clothing store, as I mentioned in another comment. What makes that 'new blue' you refer to special has nothing to do with how we perceive it directly -- it's trivial to recreate that hue. It's useful for the very specific use case of mixing colors while oil painting. It's for artists trying to blend colors.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

colechristensen 5y ago

A lot of it is poetry, but there is a grain of truth to it. There are only a handful of artificial dyes and they'll usually be engineered to make up a colorspace which is always smaller than what your eye can perceive. For a more concrete example, no matter how nice your camera and printer are, the colors which can be reproduced are currently always restricted compared to the source material (reality), and not just in a matter of there being some small error, there are colors your eyes can see in nature which can't be printed with state of the art tech. Especially with textiles, the colorspaces available with normal technology are quite a bit smaller than in nature. Whether "natural" or "synthetic" (the distinction can be a bit silly) a substance will react to light in its own unique way. The number of different substances with different responses is obviously very large in nature, technology tries to recreate a full spectrum of color with only a few substances in combination, the result is naturally not as rich.

throw0101a 5y ago
> […] there are colors your eyes can see in nature which can't be printed with state of the art tech. As an example see sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProtoPhoto RGB, Rec. 2020/2100, etc: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._2020

crazygringo 5y ago

Short answer: it's poor journalism. Long answer: there are mainly three factors that contribute to inaccurate color reproduction. The first is limited color gamut. That's not really a factor in dying fibers though -- we have plenty of synthetic dyes for things like bright orange, fluorescent green, etc. Just visit any athletic clothing store. And while yes nature has all sorts of shiny bright iridescence caused by diffraction etc., those properties are destroyed as soon as the material is smushed. You can't turn gorgeous insect wings into dye. The second is that while our eyes perceive only RGB in response to a wide spectrum, there are an infinite number of spectral patterns that we ultimately perceive as e.g. a certain orange. An orange dye from one source (natural or synthetic) will have a different source spectrum from pretty much any other orange dye (natural or synthetic). BUT it's pretty easy to match the color we perceive perfectly for a single lighting condition, e.g. sunlight. But this brings us to: The third factor, which is the spectrum of lighting. The spectra of sunlight, of fluorescent light, of LED light, is all different. The color we perceive is essentially the spectrum of the light source multiplied by the spectrum of the dye. Therefore when we change the lighting spectrum, this can change the ultimate RGB color we perceive -- so that two orange dyes that appeared literally identical in sunlight now appear subtly different under a fluorescent light. So it is true that different dyes behave slightly differently under different lighting conditions. But there's no better or worse here, and there's absolutely no "peach ripened by a tree" or "how it's supposed to be". That's complete and utter nonsense. The solution for good color matching isn't dyes from natural sources -- it's balanced, full-spectrum white lighting.

hammock 5y ago
>And while yes nature has all sorts of shiny bright iridescence caused by diffraction etc., those properties are destroyed as soon as the material is smushed. You can't turn gorgeous insect wings into dye. Seems like a great technological opportunity for someone to figure out. Recently I advised someone not to buy granite countertops sight unseen, since the way they look in person is so different from the way they look in a photo - a photo completely misses the reflections, iridescence and other three-dimensional aspects of the actual product.
- 5y ago

canadianfella 5y ago

It’s bullshit.

IncRnd 5y ago

According to my eyes, it is true. The colors he works with are beautiful and visually different from synthetic dyes.

swayvil 5y ago

Well there was a study.