wheel73

The completely solid triangle points to the Primary colors. While the Transparent of dotted triangle points to the secondary. and in between each point you see the Tertiary hues, created from the combination of the Primary and secondary “Triads”.

 

The next image shows why RGB are pure colors. Also referred to as additive color, while the CMYK is subtractive.

 

cmyk-rgb

You can see where the colors of CMYK overlap it creates a shade of the colors getting darker. In the RGB you see where the colors overlap they create a tint getting lighter.

 

It’s interesting but I’m sure not a coincidence that the K in CMYK is representative of black. Adding black to any color creates a shade.

 

I’ve been taught a tiny bit of color theory and I feel like I understand shade tint additive and subtractive a lot better now.