What Color Does Yellow Absorb

Colour

When atoms or compounds absorb lite of the proper frequency, their electrons are excited to higher energy levels. Colored compounds absorb visible (colored) low-cal and this absorption is responsible for their color.

Our eyes perceive a mixture of all of the colors, equally in the proportions in sunlight, as white calorie-free. The following figure shows how the mixture of colors that the center perceives as white calorie-free is separated as the light passes through a prism.

Every bit shown in the next figure, an object is seen as black if it absorbs all colors of white light. A white object reflects all colors of white lite equally.

If an object absorbs all colors but one, nosotros see the colour it does non absorb. The yellow strip in the following figure absorbs cerise, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet calorie-free. It reflects xanthous light and we see it as yellow.

The eye also uses complementary colors in color vision. When a color is removed from white lite nosotros see the complementary color. The post-obit table shows the colors seen when a complementary colour is removed (for example, by a color filter).

Wavelength (Angstroms) Removed	Color Removed	Color Seen (Complementary color)
6800 6100 5800 5600 5300 5000 4800 4300 4100	Cerise Orange Yellow Lemon Yellow Light-green Blueish-dark-green Blue Indigo Violet	Blue-green Blue Indigo Violet Purple Red Orange Xanthous Lemon Xanthous

The yellow strip in the post-obit figure looks yellowish because it absorbs indigo calorie-free from white light. Indigo is the complementary color of yellowish.

A solution containing the complex ion, [Cu(NH_iii)_iv]^two+, is blue considering the complex absorbs ruby and orange light, the complementary colors of blue and blue-green.