Millions of Colors, So Little Time. And Space.

These days there are hundreds and hundreds of colors of Delica beads (for the non-beaders out there among my 12-minus-3 loyal readers -- I'm pretty sure 3 bailed after the McCain Photoshop Incident -- Delicas are Miyuki's brand of tiny cylindrical Japanese beads). A lot of the colors are surface variations of the same core bead colors; you know, a matte surface or a rainbow (AB) surface. And then there are the transparents. And the matte rainbow transparents (Ok, I might be making that up!) Still, that's a lotta color to play with.

At a recent workshop I wrote in my handout that the human eye can discern about a million different colors. Well, that info was based on my notes that are at least 10 years old, so last night I googled for:

how many colors can human eye see?

(Well first of all let me just say you couldn't pay me enough to be the lab rat that had to distinguish a million colors. Can you imagine the eye test for that??? I mean, I like color but I seriously doubt I could sit still that long.)

So here's what I found. Seems opinions range quite a bit. Suffice to say, it's a lot more than Miyuki makes. Fortunately beads are compact.

• Ask Yahoo says "nobody knows" and "millions and millions.
• WikiAnswers says "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" and never answers the question. I did find out I'm a trichromat with a 10% chance of having an extra color receptor, though. Gads!
• On a different page, WikiAnswers cuts the blahblah completely and states, simply: between 35k and 55k. Unfortunately they don't explain what a "k" is. I think it's thousands?
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says some women can see 100 million colors. Pity the housewife who had to prove that.
• The gods and goddesses on Mount Wikipedia say it's . . . to tell ya the truth I couldn't FIND the answer but this line did pop out (ew!): "Eyes can be eaten by humans; in some countries" LOLOL!
• The RGB video phreaks at ArsTechnica variously claim the number is 3 million, 16 million, and fortunately somebody over there named stickboy got everybody back on track by pointing out humans don't see in bits and bytes. {SNORT!
• I found an interesting article at The Visual Body, but unfortunately my cone cells got fatigued before I located the answer. ;-)

When I dig up my favorite color & physiology link, buried in my notes somewhere, I'll revisit this topic because now that I've been entertained by the above, I really would like to know who decides this stuff and whether it's based on a guess or an actual study.

P.S. I stole the little Delica images above from Sandi at Stormcloud Trading Company. Tell her Miz Mary sent ya. ;-)