Resource on color in the digital world

[mcdronkz]

What's a good resource (book, website) on color in the digital world?

I'm trying to gain technical knowledge on the retouching side of things. One area I'm struggling with is digital color. For example:

1. How does a pixel get its color?
2. How do color models and color profiles work?
3. What is gamma and how does it work? Is it still relevant in the digital world?
4. How do RGB, CMYK, Lab, HSL, HSV and HSB relate to each other?
5. Why does RGB(128, 128, 128) equal to a 54 Lightness value in Lab?
6. What's the difference between luminance, luminosity, luma, intensity, value, brightness and lightness?
7. I read that Photoshop's Luminosity blending mode was misnamed. Why?

The list goes on and on.

Wikipedia is a source of confusion, maybe I need a slightly less technical introduction. What's the best way to learn about these things?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Tony W]

Re: Resource on color in the digital world

You will find quite a lot of information that will answer many of your questions here

http://www.digitaldog.net/tips/

[mcdronkz]

Re: Resource on color in the digital world

You will find quite a lot of information that will answer many of your questions here
http://www.digitaldog.net/tips/

Thanks, looks excellent! More suggestions are welcome.

[John Wheeler]

Re: Resource on color in the digital world

Hi mcdronkz

Check out the tutorials from this web site: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/

[andrewrodney]

Re: Resource on color in the digital world

Photoshop's name is 'wrong' because Luminance (Luminosity) is a measure of the total radiant energy from a body. It has nothing to do with what a human perceives but rather describes the total radiant energy, such as watts/second of a source (the surface of a radiating object like a display). In Photoshop, the layer mode called luminosity is not what's occurring (I was told its something like the "Luma" which is an old TV RGB transform). If the luminance of a viewed light source is increased 10 times, viewers do not judge that the brightness has increased 10 times. Brightness is a perceptual phenomena.

Lightness is a perceptually scaled component of color, the axis seen in Lab (Lstar) from light to dark. It IS the L in HSL.