Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by aaronblohowiak 4448 days ago
> at the boundary of what can be done algorithmically with satisfactory results

Mostly due to insufficient models of human perception of color. Our perception of color is not accurate, so picking complementary colors based on their actual wavelength will be less pleasing than picking complementary colors based on a perceptual model. I don't think any of the pickers you link to attempt this.

One attempt with libraries in a few common languages is HUSL: http://www.boronine.com/husl/syntax/#997061

A much older approach is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIELUV

Learn more about color perception here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_perception

[Edit: just noticed this was referenced by this comment below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7562905]