What are pigment reflectance characteristics?

Pigment reflectance characteristics are how colors look because of how they bounce light back at you.

Imagine you have a box of crayons. Each crayon is like a pigment, the stuff that gives color to things like your drawings or even your skin. Now, when you shine a flashlight on a crayon, some of the light bounces off it and goes into your eyes, letting you see its color.

If you use a red crayon, most of the red light bounces back at you, that’s why it looks red! But if you use a blue crayon, mostly blue light comes back. This is what we call reflectance, how much light a pigment sends back to your eyes.

Some pigments are like shy kids who only want to talk to certain people (light colors). A yellow pigment might let most of the yellow light go through it, but reflect the rest. That’s why you see yellow even when white light hits it, because it sends back mostly yellow.

So next time you color, remember: what you see is all about how pigments choose which lights to send back to your eyes!