The sky is blue. Grass is green. A rainbow is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Except when they aren't. Often the colors we see aren't the same colors that someone else sees. Color blindness, light and shadows, surrounding colors, image quality, printing methods, viewing device for on-screen images, and other factors affect our perception of color.

Disagreements over a certain shade of red — is it blood red, scarlet, deep red, bright red, or crimson — are common.

But what about when red is gray or green or burnt orange?

#TheDress
The problem with color became an Internet sensation with the heated debates over a photograph of a white dress with gold trim. Or was it a blue dress with black lace? There were strong opinions on each side of the issue.

I originally saw it as white with gold. Was confused when I saw the exact same picture but the dress was now blue and black. Imagine my increased confusion when a day later I saw the dress change from white and gold to blue and black while I was looking at the photograph. My boyfriend, like many others, stayed firmly in the white and gold camp unable to understand why some of us were so confused.

Many opinions were put forth on why there was such a discrepancy in the colors. The actual dress is indeed blue and black but the photograph was of poor quality and depending on the device on which it was viewed and the color vision of the viewer, it sometimes appeared as one color and sometimes as another. Some of the theories are discussed in these articles:

• The Science of Why This Dress Looks Different Colors to Different People suggests that it's our brains that are different and that individual screen differences play less of a role.
   
  
• Why Are People Seeing the Dress in Different Colors? This Person Googled It For You has photos, explanations (the color blue may be the main culprit), and a few of the tweets that went along with this debate.
   
  

 
Along these same lines, some of the issues with color perception of all kinds and working with color in desktop publishing include:  

• Color Blindness in Men is most often inherited and affects their ability to distinguish between certain colors.
   
  
• What Does It Mean to Be Color Blind? tells us that for most it's not a black and white world, it's just difficulty with certain color pairs.
   
  
• Are Your Web Pages Color Sensitive has tips on making your pages more friendly to those with typical forms of color blindness.
   
  
• Perception of Color looks at contrast, harmonizing colors, and other color combinations that may or may not work well together.
   
  

Solving Color Problems in Desktop Publishing
Most differences in color perception are more subtle than the white/gold/blue/black dress but no less important. In the world of desktop publishing and graphic design, the problem with color is that how it appears on screen and how it appears in print can vary greatly. There are color differences among devices for online viewing and differences due to printing methods, types of ink, and even the kind of paper or plastic you are printing on.

Fortunately, many color issues can be resolved or at least minimized with a variety of tools including color calibration and choosing the right printing method for the end product.

Calibration Creates Consistent Color
Printed colors can change based on the printing method and device. A color on a laptop screen may appear quite different on a cell phone screen.

Some businesses go to great lengths to insure a consistent color identify as reflected in logos, product packaging, and marketing materials. Publications often require extremely accurate color reproduction of photographs.

Even when precision color is less critical, we don't (usually) want pink Santa suits or turquoise grass. Color calibration is one way to help maintain consistent color from screen to print and across various devices.

• Calibrate Your Monitor
• Calibrate Your Printer
• Calibrate Your Scanner
• Calibrate Your Camera

When Choosing Color Printing
For a great many print projects, millions of colors are simulated by the careful combination of just four colors of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Basically, the printing press or inkjet printer places dots of ink in specific patterns that trick the eye into seeing many other colors. This printing method is ideal for full color photographs.

CMYK isn't the only option for printing in color. Depending on the number of colors, specific colors, and precise color matching desired (and money available for the printing) a designer or client may opt for 6 or 8 color printing or the use of spot colors.

• RGB vs. CMYK (on-screen vs. print)
   
  
• Choose a Printing Method Based on Type of Project to find what best fits your cost, quantity, and color quality needs.
   
  
• When to Use Spot Colors, Process Colors, and Both helps to demystify what type of printing inks to use.
   
  
• Fifth Color explains how to get more out of CMYK printing.
   
  

Making the Right Color Choices
Before attempting to achieve color consistency, another problem with color is color selection. This can be far more difficult than making sure your on-screen and print colors match up closely. With millions of colors from which to choose and sometimes conflicting information on color meanings, how do you know what color scheme will best support your message?

• Color Symbolism: What Different Colors Mean to Us breaks down the emotional responses and cultural meanings most often associated with individual colors and groups colors into warm, cool, mixed, and neutral categories .
   
  
• Favorite Colors of Men discusses not only the colors men like, but the ones they traditionally don't care for (such as purple).
   
  
• Favorite Colors of Women are also some of the favorites of men but includes other more traditionally feminine selections such as lavender.
   
  
• Red, Purple, Pink: The Colors of Diffusion on Pinterest reveals that images heavy on any of those three colors get repinned the most.
• Corporate Colors include several shades of blue.
   
  
• Fine-tuning Color Combinations takes a brief look at how colors look on different backgrounds and the use of tints and shades.
   
  
• PANTONE Color of the Year for 2015 is a shade of purple or wine. Here's how you might want to use it in your graphic design projects.
   
  

Beyond Color
There is no such thing as the perfect color for every situation. As designers we do the best we can with color selection, calibration, and the inks and other methods available for color reproduction. There is always going to be a certain segment of the population who don't like our color choices or see entirely different colors than what we see or what we intended. But the alternative is no color at all…

Using Grayscale Images, it's also called monochrome or black and white.