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Comment by zokier | Hacker News Reader

While good attempt in 2012, afaik we can do better these days with e.g. ok* family of colorspaces: https://bottosson.github.io/posts/colorpicker/ (includes section on hsluv)

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Kinda sad that there is no distinction made between color selection and color production. RGB based color opponents (e.g. red - cyan, green - purple) are less pleasing to the eye and culturally relevant than RYB ones (red - green, yellow - purple).

Let's say you develop a luxury theme, the yellow - purple opponency would naturally lead you to the classic colors of royality, purple and gold.

A good RYB based picker is the good old Paletton: https://paletton.com/

If (and that is a big if) using opponents results pleasing pairings only with some specially crafted wonky RYB colorspace then to me that is more just an indication that using opponents is not a robust way of picking pleasant pairings.

I am also very dubious about the claim of the color pairings being more or less "culturally relevant".

They're more pleasing because artists and graphic designers used RYB pairings for decades, these pairings all over the place in analog and digital media, people are more used to them. Even Adobe still uses an RYB wheel in their software, RGB only for color grading (it still deviates slightly from a normal RGB color distribution).

RYB is more culturally relevant because artists and designers "produce" culture based on it.

> Classic colors of royalty

I think this is a stretch, red and blue are also classic colours of royalty.

Purple was the color of royalty because it was expensive. Same for gold.

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