Color additive refers to the
process of addition of primary
colors (the color system data)
and for producing secondary colors.
For example, if the RGB color system is the model of primary
colors and primary colors will be
red, green and blue. The use of
an additive color system,
a
photographer can add any combination of
these colors together to produce
all the secondary colors (magenta,
yellow or blue-green called cyan).If all the primary colors are added, a white light is obtained.
Color additive systems operate in a manner diametrically opposed to subtractive color systems that work by absorbing all colors except that the object appears to be. For example, a red apple appears red because it absorbs all colors of the color spectrum, except for red. This denial of other colors is the way the subtractive color systems work.
In late 1800, the physicist James Clerk Maxwell and the photographer Thomas Sutton proved the existence of additive color system, photographing the tape under the color filters red, green and blue. The results of each image represents an image that had produced an additive effect of all the colors of the scene.
