Making Colors on the Computer with TriColor Software

Purpose

Explore colors are created by changing the intensities of red, green, and blue on a computer screen. Intensities range from 0 to 100%, which leads to 1,030,302 possible colors to view. 

An intensity of 0% indicates that there is no contribution of this particular color (red, green, or blue) in the observed color on the screen.  A value of 100% means that all of the possible intensity of the color is present in the final display color.

NOTE: The images that follow are not interactive. Please download the software (OSX OS9 PC Java) and follow along with the mini tutorial.

Getting Started

There are 3 ways to change color intensity:

1) Single clicks on the up arrow increase intensity by one unit, and single clicks on the down arrow decrease color intensity by one unit. 
2) Click on an arrow and hold to quickly change values.  Colors on the test screen will change immediately.
3) Click the cursor in each white box and type a whole number between 0 and 100, or use the “tab” key to move between the boxes and type new values.  When typing values,

Click 'Apply New Color Intensities' to view the color created with the three intensities of red, green, and blue.