Primary Color at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

Mixing two primary colors in equal proportion results in the formation of the secondary colors - orange, violet, and green. When a primary color is mixed with an adjacent secondary color, a tertiary color - such as red-violet or blue-green - is produced. Seeing colors as spokes of a wheel enables you to see how one color relates to another.

It is inconvenient to set up three magic lanterns whenever a color photograph is to be looked at. A portable apparatus, the Kromskop, was devised in 1892 by Frederic E. Ives of Philadelphia, which optically reunited three stereoscopic transparencies so they could be viewed in register. Each transparency was illuminated through a Filter of the appropriate primary color: red, green, blue. The result was a brilliant color photograph in three dimensions, of startling realism.

• Carry fabric swatches with you when shopping for new decorative materials. It is surprisingly difficult to remember exactly how light or dark a color is. • Colors look different according to the light, so it helps to examine all colors under the same Lighting conditions. • Large expanses of a single color can look dull. Instead, match a variety of closely related tones with an occasional splash of contrasting color to create a more lively harmony. • For successful color schemes, incorporate a balanced mixture of primary colors, darker tones, and lighter tones. You can mix strongly contrasting colors to create a pleasing effect as long as you follow a few basic guidelines. Pure primary colors are lively and vibrant, but they can also be overpowering and garish. To avoid problems, use them in unequal proportions and introduce lighter or darker variations of each. For example, rather than introduce equal amounts of red and yellow in the same color scheme, select varying proportions of paler and darker red-oranges and yellow-oranges.