

The Müller Formula: Predictable color preferences - bootload
http://www.livelygrey.com/2007/08/the_muller_formula_or_predicta.html

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jacobolus
This analysis is a bit silly. In both cases, the "ugly" combinations have much
less value contrast.

More useful link: <http://handprint.com/HP/WCL/color11.html>

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bouncingsoul
Actually you're exactly wrong about the contrast.

If you convert the red-orange scheme to grayscale you'll see that both the
_ugly_ and _nice_ schemes have the same value contrast. If you convert the
green-blue scheme to grayscale you'll see that the _ugly_ combination has
_more_ value contrast.

See: <http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/9127/grayfx0.png>

The issue isn't contrast, it's hue.

The author uses the Müller Formula to explain it, but I'm not convinced about
the "follow the natural brightness" argument – does that explanation still
make sense if you reorder the colors in the scheme?

I learned this stuff in color theory without this formula. It's simply this:
combinations of colors with similar hues don't look good together.

I hope this picture helps explain it:
<http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/3797/vomitev5.png>

Obviously the left scheme doesn't look _great_ in that graphic because all the
colors have the same value. But you can see that it looks better than a scheme
with colors of similar hue.

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jacobolus
You have the shittiest “convert to grayscale” I’ve ever seen: it doesn’t come
close to preserving the value of the colors. Convert the image to Lab, and
look at the L channel, and you will see that the “ugly” combinations have very
little value contrast, while the “nice” ones have a great deal more.

To see who is “exactly wrong” more graphically:
<http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/7098/grayfxbetternp7.png>

Notice that in the bottom row, where we take the value from ugly and nice
combinations and reverse them, the combinations with the “nice” choices of hue
are now looking ugly as sin, while those with the “ugly” choices of hue no
longer look so bad.

Also, in your second image, the green stripe on the left is quite a bit
brighter than red or blue stripes, which is the dominant reason that the
combination on the left looks “better”, while the three stripes on the right
side are of quite similar value.

Image showing this:
[http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/2456/vomitev5betteryu5.pn...](http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/2456/vomitev5betteryu5.png)

I didn’t really have the half hour to spend on this (paper due tomorrow;
blargh), so hopefully someone finds it edifying.

(Edit: None of this is to say that there isn’t some real truth to the link’s
author’s claims about commonly preferred color combinations based on hue. It’s
just that the graphics he uses to demonstrate it [and also the one you made]
are horribly misleading, and mostly reflect a completely unrelated effect)

\----

Another edit to add: the hang-up may be that the “value” of the HSV model has
almost nothing to do with the term “value” as used by artists or color
scientists. So that may be the source of your confusion. HSL and HSV were
designed for the 1970s and are nearly useless in an age of fast computers.

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bouncingsoul
Your second edit nails it. I thought the brightness in HSB was equivalent to
value, which is what I built my second graphic around. If you use my shitty
grayscale converter ( _Desaturate_ in Photoshop) they all come out to the same
gray, so I thought I had it right.

Using _Black & White_ gets me results much closer to what you've made.

Thanks for criticizing my graphics and putting up improved ones. (The second
one isn't working, but I understand your point about the green – again,
_Desaturate_ convinced me they were all the same value.)

It's really hard to isolate and demonstrate one property of color at a time.

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jacobolus
Yep. It's true. Which is why it's annoying when posts like the article linked
from the top of this thread attribute effects to one of those “properties”
which are clearly mostly caused by another.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to be overly aggressive in calling your grayscale
conversion “shitty”. Hope it didn't come across the wrong way. :)

