What are the three additive colors?

• A. Green, Blue, and Yellow
• B. Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow
• C. Red, Green, and Blue
• D. Red, Blue, and Yellow

Answer: (C)

Colors on screens and in lighting come from adding light. The three colors that serve as additive primaries are red, green, and blue. By adjusting their brightness, you can reproduce a wide range of colors, and when all three are at full intensity, you get white light.

The other color sets come from subtractive color mixing, which applies to pigments and printing: cyan, magenta, and yellow are used because they absorb (subtract) certain wavelengths. Red, blue, and yellow are traditional art primaries but don’t reflect how light-based color mixing works.