What Is “Sky Blue” Anyway? Color Science! In my latest episode on YouTube, you may have seen the “official sky blue” color that popped up. Curious where that came from? Want to use it in your artwork? I converted 475 nm light, the predominant blue wavelength that’s scattered by our atmosphere (and the reason the sky is blue) into hex code (top), and then added in various amounts of white. Depending on how much water vapor and microscopic dust is in the atmosphere, white light gets mixed in with that pure blue. I’ll probably get in trouble for declaring this “official sky blue”, and RGB colorspace isn’t a perfect model of the eye, but I have science on my side, so there! If you’d like to try yourself, check out this wavelength-to-RGB tool based on the color algorithm developed by Dan Bruton. Subscribe to It’s Okay To Be Smart on YouTube and watch the latest episode: “Why Is The Sky Any Color At All?”
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What Is “Sky Blue” Anyway? Color Science!

In my latest episode on YouTube, you may have seen the “official sky blue” color that popped up. Curious where that came from? Want to use it in your artwork?

I converted 475 nm light, the predominant blue wavelength that’s scattered by our atmosphere (and the reason the sky is blue) into hex code (top), and then added in various amounts of white. Depending on how much water vapor and microscopic dust is in the atmosphere, white light gets mixed in with that pure blue.

I’ll probably get in trouble for declaring this “official sky blue”, and RGB colorspace isn’t a perfect model of the eye, but I have science on my side, so there!

If you’d like to try yourself, check out this wavelength-to-RGB tool based on the color algorithm developed by Dan Bruton.

Subscribe to It’s Okay To Be Smart on YouTube and watch the latest episode: “Why Is The Sky Any Color At All?”

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    Science making art better
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    Nailed it, Sky Blue
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