Additive color model

Screens create color by mixing light. This is the additive model, and its primary colors are red, green and blue (RGB).

It is called additive because adding light makes colors brighter. Red and green light make yellow, and all three at full strength make white.

In 1861, physicist James Clerk Maxwell showed a color photograph at the Royal Institution in London, made by combining red, green and blue filtered images. Every screen still relies on the same idea.