Cyan

This article is about the color. For other uses, see Cyan (disambiguation).

Cyan
Spectral coordinates
Wavelength	490–520 nm
Frequency	610–575 THz
Common connotations
water
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#00FFFF
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(0, 255, 255)
Source	CSS Color Module Level 3
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Cyan (/ˈsaɪ.ən/ or /ˈsaɪ.æn/; from Greek: κύανoς, transliterated: kýanos, meaning "dark blue") is a greenish-blue color. It is one of the primary subtractive colors used in color printing.

On the traditional color wheel, cyan is located midway between blue and green. It was usually called blue-green. The name cyan or cyan-blue was first used as a color name in the 19th century.

In the subtractive color model, cyan is the complementary color of red; mixing red and cyan paint will produce a gray color.

In the additive color system, or RGB color model, used to create all the colors on a computer or television display, cyan is made by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light. Since it is the complement of red, it can also be made by the removal of red from white light, Mixing red light and cyan light at the right intensity on a black screen will make white.

In the CMYK color model, used in color printing, cyan is one of the primary colors, along with magenta, yellow, and black, which can be overlaid to produce all different colors.

This color is also called aqua and was formerly known as "cyan blue".or cyan-blue.

The first recorded use of cyan blue as a color name in English was in 1879. Cyan light has a wavelength of between 490 and 520 nanometers, between the wavelengths of blue and green. Some tones of color in the cyan color range are teal, turquoise, electric blue and aquamarine.

Gallery

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  In the RGB color model, used to make colors on computer and TV displays, cyan is created by the combination of green and blue light.

• 

  In the RGB color wheel of additive colors, cyan is midway between blue and green.

• 

  In the CMYK color model, used in color printing, cyan, magenta and yellow combined make black. In pratice, since the inks are not perfect, some black ink is added.

• 

  Color printers today use magenta, cyan, and yellow ink to produce the full range of colors.

• 

  Cyan and red are complementary colors. They have strong contrast and harmony, and if combined, they make either white, black or grey, depending upon the color system used.

• 

  Cyan is the color of shallow water over a sandy beach. The water absorbs the color red from the sunlight, leaving a greenish-blue color.

• 

  The dome of the Tilla Kari Mosque in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (1660) is cyan. The color is widely used in architecture in Turkey and Central Asia.

• 

  The planet Uranus. seen from the Voyager 2 spacecraft. The cyan color comes from clouds of methane gas in the planet's atmosphere.

• 

  A surgical team in Germany. Surgeons and nurses often wear gowns colored cyan, and operating rooms are often painted that color, because it is restful to the eyes, is the complement of red and thus does not show bloodstains as vividly, and it causes the least anxiety to patients.

Varieties of cyan

The web colors cyan and aqua

Cyan (additive secondary)
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#00FFFF
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(0, 255, 255)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(100, 0, 0, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(180°, 100%, 100%)
Source	X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

The web color cyan shown at right is a secondary color in the RGB color model, which uses combinations of red, green and blue light to create all the colors on computer and television displays. In X11 colors, this color is called both cyan and aqua. In the HTML oolor list, this same color is called aqua.

The web colors are more vivid than the cyan used in the CMYK color system, and the web colors cannot be be accurately reproduced on a printed page. To reproduce the web color cyan in inks, it is necessary to add some white ink to the printer's cyan below, so when it is reproduced in printing, it is not a primary subtractive color. It is called aqua (a name in use since 1598) because it is a color commonly associated with water, such as the appearance of the water at a tropical beach.

Process cyan (pigment cyan) (printer's cyan)

Cyan (subtractive primary)
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#00B7EB
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(0, 183, 235)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(100, 22, 0, 8)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(193°, 100%, 92%)
Source	CMYK
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Cyan is also one of the common inks used in four-color printing, along with magenta, yellow, and black; this set of colors is referred to as CMYK as in spectrum(s).

While both the additive secondary and the subtractive primary are called cyan, they can be substantially different from one another. Cyan printing ink can be more saturated or less saturated than the RGB secondary cyan, depending on what RGB color space and ink are considered.

Process cyan is not an RGB color, and there is no fixed conversion from CMYK primaries to RGB. Different formulations are used for printer's ink, so there can be variations in the printed color that is pure cyan ink. A typical formulation of process cyan is shown in the color box at right.

In nature

Molecules

• Pure water is nearly colorless. However, it does absorb slightly more red light than blue, giving large volumes of water a bluish tint; increased scattering of blue light due to fine particles in the water shifts the blue color toward green, for a typically cyan net color.
• Cyanide derives its name from Prussian blue, a blue pigment containing the cyanide ion.

Bacteria

• Cyanobacteria (sometimes called blue-green algae) are an important link in the food chain.

In human culture

Architecture

• Cyan colored tiles are often used to pave swimming pools to make the water within them seem more intensely colored, and therefore more inviting.

Astronomy

• The planet Uranus is colored cyan because of the abundance of methane in its atmosphere.

Energy

• Natural gas (methane), used by many for home cooking on gas stoves, has a cyan colored flame when burned with a mixture of air.

Film

• Cinecolor, a bi-pack color process, the photographer would load a standard camera with two films, one orthochromatic, dyed red, and a panchromatic strip behind it. Color light would expose the cyan record on the ortho stock, which also acted as a filter, exposing only red light to the panchromatic film stock.

Medicine

• Cyanosis is an abnormal blueness of the skin, usually a sign of poor oxygen intake. i.e. the patient is "cyanotic".
• Cyan is associated with the throat chakra in vedic medicine.

Why surgeons wear cyan gowns

In the 19th century, surgeons wore white gowns, but in the 20th century surgeons began to wear cyan or green surgical gowns, for several reasons. First, in the brightly-lit operating room, green reflected less light than white and caused less strain on the eyes of the medical team. Second, cyan is the complementary color of red, so red blood on a cyan gown looks black or gray, and not red, and is not as vivid. Also, since red and green are complementary colors, shifting your sight to green after staring at red for long time does not cause green after-images, as shifting from red to white will do. Lastly, since green is considered one of the most restful and soothing colors, it causes less anxiety to patients.

Music

• Cyan was a British progressive rock band from the 1980s and 1990s.
• Cyan is the signature color for the vocaloid Hatsune Miku.
• Process Cyan is the color of new-wave band, Devo's stage-worn Energy Domes from 2010 onwards.

Photography

• Cyanotype, or blueprint, a monochrome photographic printing process that predates the use of the word cyan as a color, yields a deep cyan-blue colored print based on the Prussian blue pigment.

See also

• List of colors
• Distinguishing blue from green in language
• Orange, formerly called "yellow-red" (compare with blue-green)
• Variations of cyan