Glossary for Geospatial Science

subtractive color:  Creating color by using absorption or scattering to selectively remove some of the colors of light, or radiation, reaching the human eye is a subtractive process.  The use of pigments, such as color printing or a painting, demonstrate this subtractive color process.  The greater the number of different colored pigments mixed together, the darker a pigmented object appears.  This darkness results from an increased absorption of visible light by the pigments and, consequently, less light reflected to the eye.  The presence of fewer pigments or their absence altogether results in greater reflectance of visible light.  Selective absorption removes a color(s) from the reflected radiation and results in the perception of the complementary color.