CMYK and the Magical Illusion of Colour

Glass slides are slowly layered on top of each other, first with black, then yellow, red, and finally blue colours. Once all aligned they show a real-life image of a girl wearing a head band.
It doesn't matter how many times I watch it, that final moment is still satisfying.

There's isn't much to add to the above GIF, other than that I think it's a really cleverly designed and demonstrated concept. The idea of CMYK printing is nothing new to me; I've been interested in the physics used in forming imagery since I first noticed the tiny circles of colour (read: pixels) on a Coca-Cola vending machine image at school. Heck, I've worked for a newspaper company right next to the printing warehouse and currently program for a company that specialises in bulk printing!

That said, I still find the concept of combining varying levels of cyan, magenta, yellow and black to form a seemingly full-colour image a little magical. I'm clearly not the only one, too, and this was a little too well executed not to share.

PS: This is also the first time I've ever posted using a card. Having finally seen the process in the wild, this is also a little bit magical. I'm just a little concerned its magical towards the Dark Arts end of the spectrum.

Update 20/05/20: Image URL has been altered. No longer clear what the "card" was being referenced so have replaced with a standard GIF, hosted externally.

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  • Murray Champernowne.
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