Why is it that when you go over text with a yellow highlighter multiple times it doesn’t get stronger in intensity, but it will for almost any other color of highlighter?

Question

Why is it that when you go over text with a yellow highlighter multiple times it doesn’t get stronger in intensity, but it will for almost any other color of highlighter?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

I believe this is because of the value of the color.

Value is the amount of white or black in a given color. Think of value on a scale of 1 (pure white) to 10 (pure black. The lower on the scale a color is, the lighter it’s value. The lighter the value, the less change you’ll see when adding more light value. This is the same for darker values when applying darker values.

Values in the middle or near that change as you add more white or more black.

On the color wheel, the majority of the colors are in the middle/darker end of value. But yellow is on the lightest end of value, closer to white. (Example, think of writing a sentence on a white sheet of paper with different colored pencils. The hardest color to see, because its so close to white, is yellow.) The medium of which the color is applied also matters. In the case of paint, the more layers you add, the brighter the color, but that’s due to the opacity of each layer as it’s applied.

Now with highlighters the same logic applies. A yellow highlighter or marker is extremely light in value, and according to value, adding more white doesn’t change the brightness. Adding more yellow to yellow doesn’t really alter it’s value and that’s because it

1.) Catches a lot of light.

2.) The amount in each layer is exactly the same or close to it as markers/highlighters are typically controlled amounts of pigment released with pressure.

With other colors, you get two different effects. Color that darkens because the color you’re using has more dark values to it. Adding more layers makes it darker (you see this with reds, blues, purples).

Or, the color appears darker as you add more layers because it doesn’t catch as much light, therefore everytime you add a new layer, you are able to see the soaked area catching less and less light (you see this with greens, oranges, pinks, and lighter blues).