Which Color Wheel, please ?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 03 May 2014 22:46:59 GMT

This matter has been bothering me for many years now. I wonder if and how many Kuler users are actually aware of this, but the Adobe Kuler color wheel is spatially based on some perceptual color theory and harmony, and not the color wheel for technical color systems and settings.

For example the primary colors in the typically and technically triangle of RGB or CMY are not to be found in a perfect 120 degrees angle in the Adobe Kuler color wheel.

This is the RGB theme of 0, 120 and 240 degrees in Hue values, spread across the Adobe Kuler color wheel:

As you can see in the above picture, Adobe gracefully 'bends' the space between the values to accommodate for the Kuler color wheel, which follows color theory and harmony. (No wonder Adobe Kuler is reluctant to reveal the advanced value settings of these colors...)

But it's not even similar to the distribution of colors in the Active Color panel of Illustrator.

The green looks similar to the one in the Kuler wheel, but the blue has shifted once again !

To remind you, below, an indication of the Apple color wheel interpretation of RGB:

Finally, there's even a clearer indication of the mismatch between these color wheels.

You can see the technically 0, 90, 180, 270, and 360 degrees setting for the hue value, but it's not at all the exact cross hair you'd expect:

As you can see, what used to be a quarter (90 degrees) in a technically correct RGB distribution of colors in the Apple color wheel, accounts for almost half of the Kuler wheel, while enormously truncating the differences between red and purple.

Due to the same difference, the so called "harmonious" effect of complimentary colors (which are supposed to be exact opposites), or triads (which are supposed to be spread 120 degrees apart from each other) falls to the ground when the spreading of the colors on the wheel seems purely arbitrary. One can only wonder which wheel is the correct one...

So when picking colors together with other designers, be sure to settle on a unanimous color wheel (Adobe Kuler, Illustrator, or Apple), before you start throwing your mentally creative darts at it...

I wish Kuler (and other Adobe popular applications) would at least warn for these differences, or let you pick a preferred color wheel.

Adobe Community: Message List - Which Color Wheel, please ?

Which Color Wheel, please ?