Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect

The Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect (after Hermann von Helmholtz and Rudolf Kohlrausch) is an entoptic phenomenon wherein the intense saturation of spectral hue is perceived as part of the color's luminance. This brightness increase by saturation, which grows stronger as saturation increases, might better be called chromatic luminance, since "white" or achromatic luminance is the standard of comparison. It appears in both self-luminous and surface colors, although it is most pronounced in spectral lights.

Even when they have the same luminance, colored lights seem brighter to human observers than white light does. The way humans perceive the brightness of the lights will be different for everyone. When the colors are more saturated, our eyes interpret it as the color's luminance and chroma. This makes us believe that the colors are actually brighter. An exception to this is when the human observer is red-green colorblind, they cannot distinguish the differences between the lightness of the colors. Certain colors do not have significant effect, however, any hue of colored lights still seem brighter than white light that has the same luminance. Two colors that do not have as great of an Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect as the others are green and yellow.

The Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect is impacted by the viewing environment. This includes the surroundings of the object and the lighting that the object is being viewed under. The Helmholtz–Kohlrausch effect works best in darker environments where there are not any other outside factors influencing the colors. For example, this is why theaters are all dark environments.

An example of this lightness factor would be if there were different colors on a grey background that all are of the same lightness. Obviously the colors look different because they are different colors not just grey, but if the image were converted all to grey scale, all of the colors would match the grey background because they all have the same lightness.

Brightness is affected most by what is surrounding the object. In other words, the object can look lighter or darker depending on what is around it. In addition, the brightness can also appear different depending on the color of the object. For example, an object that is more saturated will look brighter than the same object that is less saturated even when they have the same luminance.

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