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From: stebbins@campanella.ucr.edu (john stebbins)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: distinguishable colors
Message-ID: <9789@ucrmath.ucr.edu>
Date: 8 Nov 90 20:37:07 GMT
References: <90311.133441BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu>
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Reply-To: stebbins@campanella.ucr.edu (john stebbins)
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In article <90311.133441BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu>, BRL102@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben
Liblit) writes:
|> As computers' color capabilities grow more and more sophisticated,
the number
|> of possible colors one can display grows larger and larger.  I am curious,
|> though:  how much is too much?  Is it known approximately how many distinct
|> colors the human eye is able to distinguish?  Even an
order-of-magnitude esti-
|> mate would suffice.
|> 
|>                             Ben Liblit
|>                             BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu
|>                             "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que
la nuit."


The number of distinct shades of grey you can see is somewhere around
90 to 100.  I have never heard any figures for seeing distinct colors, but
my guess is you can scale up from the figure for shades by giving each
of the 3 primary colors 100 different shades.  Then when you combine them
you get 100^3 possibilities.  I know color vision is physically much 
different then black and white vision, but you just asked for an order
of magnitude figure.  This ought to be a pretty close guess.

John Stebbins
stebbins@ucrmath.ucr.edu