Editing Subtractive color (section)

{{Short description|Light passing through successive filters}}
{{More footnotes|date=January 2012}}
[[File:SubtractiveColor.svg|thumb|Subtractive color mixing]]
[[File:Duhauron1877.jpg|thumb|200px|An 1877 color photo by [[Louis Ducos du Hauron]], a French pioneer of [[color photography]]. The overlapping subtractive yellow, cyan and red (magenta) image elements can be seen clearly along the edges of the image.]]

'''Subtractive color''' or '''subtractive color mixing''' predicts the [[spectral power distribution]] of light after it passes through successive layers of partially absorbing media. This idealized model is the essential principle of how [[dye]]s and [[pigment]]s are used in color printing and photography, where the perception of [[color]] is elicited after white light passes through microscopic "stacks" of partially absorbing media, allowing some wavelengths of [[light]] to reach the eye and not others. It is also a concept seen in painting, wherein the colors are mixed or applied in successive layers.