Has anybody else noticed that looking at this Web page creates an optical illusion? Because of the blue stripe across the screen, when I look away from the screen I see a yellow stripe. And I’m getting a headache.
You look away?
Basically, this relates to the visible spectrum of and colours. As it relates to design and illustration, this is referred to as the RGB spectrum - Red, Green & Blue. [As opposed to CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black - which is the printing spectrum] Here’s a handy diagram: [urlhttp://www.daleroose.com/img/rgb-color-wheel-labeled.png]Link.
As you can see, the diametric opposite of the colour blue is yellow. Since you are looking at a blue stripe against a bright, white background, your eyes will “reverse” the colour when looking at a dark[er] background. Any primary colour will create this effect, but blue to yellow is the most noticeable.
(Yeah, I’m sure that you probably knew all this already. Just putting it out there - don’t mean to patronise.)
Yup… I remember telling people I noticed this with red and blue colors on monitors and they had no clue what I was talking about (the colors would shift big time with my glasses while looking straight at the color, but shifting my head would distort those images because of the lens angle of the glasses, and expose the yellow and blue tints on their edges). My glasses were working like prisms. LCD monitors have improved this annoyance.
Strangely enough, I made an illusion based on a related effect and using the Straight Dope banner as a base a few years ago, in response to this thread.
For reasons that are unfathomable to me, I think that the disc that I saved the actual images on are on my desk at work. I’ll try to post it tomorrow. (I let larrymudd.com lapse some time ago, the links won’t work.)