A photograph rendered with a small monochrome palette

Monochrome comes from the Greek μονόχρωμος (monochromos), meaning “of one color”, which is a combination of μόνος (monos), meaning “alone” or “solitary”, and χρώμα (chroma), meaning “color”. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly ^[1] Monochromatic light is light of a single wavelength, though in practice it can refer to light of a narrow wavelength range. A monochromatic object or image is one whose range of colors consists of shades of a single color or hue; monochrome images in neutral colors are also known as grayscale or black-and-white. Hue is one of the main properties of a Color described with names such as " Red " " Yellow " etc In Computing, a grayscale or greyscale Digital image is an image in which the value of each Pixel Black-and-white is a number of Monochrome forms in Visual arts.

Theory

In physics, the word is used more generally to refer to electromagnetic radiation of a single wavelength. Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. Electromagnetic radiation takes the form of self-propagating Waves in a Vacuum or in Matter. In Physics wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a propagating Wave of a given Frequency. In the physical sense, no real source of electromagnetic radiation is purely monochromatic, since that would require a wave of infinite duration as a consequence of the Fourier transform's localization property (cf. A wave is a disturbance that propagates through Space and Time, usually with transference of Energy. This article specifically discusses Fourier transformation of functions on the Real line; for other kinds of Fourier transformation see Fourier analysis and spectral coherence). In Physics, coherence is a property of waves that enables stationary (i Even sources such as lasers have some narrow range of wavelengths (known as the spectral linewidth) within which they operate. A laser is a device that emits Light ( Electromagnetic radiation) through a process called Stimulated emission. The spectral linewidth characterizes the width of a Spectral line, such as in the electromagnetic emission spectrum of an atom or the Frequency spectrum In practice, filtered light, diffraction grating separated light and laser light are all routinely referred to as monochromatic. In Optics, a Diffraction grating is an optical component with a regular pattern which splits ( diffracts) light into several beams travelling in different Often light sources can be compared and one be labeled as “more monochromatic” (in a similar usage as monodispersity). And a device which isolates light sources of a narrow bandwidth are called monochromators, even though the bandwidth is often explicitly specified, and thus a collection of wavelengths is understood. A monochromator is an optical device that transmits a mechanically selectable narrow band of Wavelengths of Light or other Radiation chosen from

Application

For an image, the term monochrome is usually taken to mean the same as black-and-white or, more likely, grayscale, but may also be used to refer to other combinations containing only tones of a single color, such as green-and-white or green-and-black. An image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact usually two-dimensional that has a similar appearance to some subject &mdashusually Black is the Color of objects that do not emit or Reflect Light in any part of the Visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of White is a Color, the perception which is evoked by Light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive Cone cells in the Human eye In Computing, a grayscale or greyscale Digital image is an image in which the value of each Pixel Green is a Color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a Wavelength of roughly 520–570- nm. It may also refer to sepia displaying tones from light tan to dark brown or cyanotype (“blueprint”) images, and early photographic methods such as Ambrotype, Tintype and Daguerreotype, each of which may be used to produce a monochromatic image. Sepia tone refers to the coloring of a black and white photographic print or motion picture film that has been toned with a sepia toner to simulate the faded brownish color of Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that gives a cyan-blue print The ambrotype process (from Greek ambrotos, "immortal" or amphitype is a photographic process that creates a positive photographic Tintype, also melainotype and ferrotype, is a Photographic process first described by Adolphe-Alexandre Martin in France in 1853 and patented The daguerreotype (original French daguerréotype) is an early type of Photograph, developed by Louis Daguerre, in which the image is exposed directly

In computing, monochrome has two meanings:

• it may mean having only one color which is either on or off,
• allowing shades of that color, although the latter is more correctly known as grayscale.

A monochrome computer display is able to display only a single color, often green, amber, red or white, and often also shades of that color. A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of Electrical equipment which displays images generated from the Video Amber is an orange - Yellow Color that got its name from the material known as Amber. Red is any of a number of similar Colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of Light discernible by the human eye in the wavelength

In film photography, monochrome is typically the use of black and white film. Originally, all photography was done in monochrome until the invention of color film plates in the early 20th century.

Monochrome anaglyph image stereogram rendered in red and cyan

In digital photography, monochrome is the capture of only shades of black by the sensor, or by post-processing a color image to present only the perceived brightness by combining the values of multiple channels (usually red, blue, and green). Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect when viewed with 2 color glasses (each lens a chromatically opposite color usually red and cyan Stereogram may also refer to an integrated High fidelity system or Music centre. The weighting of individual channels may be selected to achieve a desired artistic effect - if only the red channel is selected by the weighting then the effect will be similar to that of using a red filter on panchromatic film. Panchromatic film is a type of Black-and-white Photographic film that is sensitive to all Wavelengths of Visible light. If the red channel is eliminated and the green and blue combined then the effect will be similar to that of Orthochromatic film or the use of a cyan filter on panchromatic film. Orthochromatic refers to any spectrum of light that is devoid of red light The selection of weighting thus allows a wide range of artistic expression in the final monochromatic image.

For production of an anaglyph image the original color stereogram source may first be reduced to monochrome in order to simplify the rendering of the image. Anaglyph images are used to provide a stereoscopic 3D effect when viewed with 2 color glasses (each lens a chromatically opposite color usually red and cyan Stereogram may also refer to an integrated High fidelity system or Music centre. This is sometimes required in cases where a color image would render in a confusing manner given the colors and patterns present in the source image and the selection filters used (typically red and its complement cyan),

See also

• Duotone - the use of two ink colors in printing
• Halftone - the use of black and white in a pattern that is perceived as shades of grey (may be extended also to color images)
• Monochromacy (Color blindness)
• Selective color Use of monochrome and color selectively within an image

References