Xerox Fiery color server User Manual page 94

A
A-2 Desktop Color Primer
Shining sunlight through a prism separates it into its spectral components, resulting in
the familiar rainbow of colors shown in the following figure.
Like the sun, most light sources we encounter in our daily environment emit a mixture
of light wavelengths, although the particular distribution of wavelengths can vary
considerably. Light from a tungsten light bulb, for example, contains much less blue
light than sunlight. Tungsten light appears white to the human eye, which, up to a
point, can adjust to the different light sources. However, color objects appear different
under tungsten light than they do in sunlight because of the different spectral makeup
of the two light sources.
The mixture of light wavelengths emitted by a light source is reflected selectively by
different objects. Different mixtures of reflected light appear as different colors. Some
of these mixtures appear as relatively saturated colors, but most appear as grays or
impure hues of a color.