Exploring Color Theory In Python With Thomas Mansencal

Summary

We take it for granted every day, but creating and displaying vivid colors in our digital media is a complicated and often difficult process. There are different ways to represent color, the ways in which they are displayed can cause them to look different, and translating between systems can cause losses of information. To simplify the process of working with color information in code Thomas Mansencal wrote the Colour project. In this episode we discuss his motiviation for creating and sharing his library, how it works to translate and manage color representations, and how it can be used in your projects.

Preface

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• Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, and read the show notes. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions I would love to hear them. You can reach me on Twitter at @Podcast__init__ or email [email protected])
• Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Thomas Mansencal about Colour, a python library for working with algorithms and transformations to explore color theory

Interview

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• What is color theory?
  • How does Colour assist in the process of working with some of the practical applications of colour science?



• What was your motivation for creating Colour?


• What are some example use cases for colour?


• One of the aspects of color in digital environments that is often confusing is the number of different ways that it can be represented. What are the relative benefits of things like RGB, HSV, CMYK, etc.?


• How is the Colour library architected and how has that evolved over time?
  • Are there new developments in the area of color theory that need to be periodically incorporated into the library?



• What have you found to be some of the most often misunderstood aspects of color?


• What have been some of the most difficult or frustrating aspects of building, maintaining, and promoting Colour?


• What are some of the most interesting or unexpected uses of Colour that you have seen?


• What are your plans for the future of Colour?

Keep In Touch

• Website

Picks

• Tobias
  • Beasts of Olympus by Lucy Coates



• Thomas
  • Coursera Mathematics Machine Learning Course

Links

• Colour
• Color Theory
• Color Science
• Weta Digital
• Wingnut AR
• Visual Effects Artist
• Allegro
• AutoDesk Maya
• PyQT
• Isaac Newton
• Color Wheel
• Colorimetry
• CIE
• VY Canis Majoris (Red Hypergiant)
• Rigel (Blue-White Supergiant)
• Kelvin Temperature Scale
• Black Body Radiation
• HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging)
• Adobe DNG SDK
• ICC
• OpenColorIO
• MERCK Group
• Color Space
• RGB
• HSV
• CMYK
• CIE XYZ
• CIE RGB
• CIE Lab
• CIE Luv
• sRGB
• Gamma Correction
• Additive Color Space
• Subtractive Color Space
• Color Blindness
• Gustavo Machado
• Rods and Cones
• Dichromacy
• Color Appearance Model
• Uniform Color Spaces
• JOSS
• ArXiv
• CIECAM02 Color Appearance Model
• Cinematic Color
• Jeremy Selan (Author of OpenColorIO)
• Academy Color Encoding System
• Color Appearance Models by Mark D. Fairchild
• The Reproduction of Colour by Dr. R.W.G. Hunt
• Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae, 2nd Edition by Günther Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles
• Katherine Crowson
• Google Colab

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA