From: Randal <digitas-AT-panix.com>
Date: 26 May 2009 11:27:30 UTC   (03:27:30 PM in author's locale)
To: "The Graphics List" <graphics-AT-lists.graphicslist.org>

At 11:55 AM -0400 5/26/09, Michael Brady wrote:
>So, anyone want to shout out one or two PMS numbers for "indigo" blue? I'm racking up frequent flyer miles on the internet looking at photo sites BTW, Stock Xchange is good, has a good search feature (well focused without too many extraneous hits), and loads quickly via DSL.
>

Wikipedia has what looks like a very good article about indigo:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo

and

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_dye

Indigo is the color on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet.

Wavelength 420-450 nm

Hex triplet #4B0082
sRGBB (r, g, b) (75, 0, 130)
HSV (h, s, v) (275°, 100%, 51%)

They also list slightly different colors for "Electric Indigo", Pigment Indigo", and "Indigo Dye".

Indigo is one of those colors (like "blood red" or "teal") which are not really susceptible to permanent fashion alteration in their word's reference hue since they refer to the colors of real, natural things.

Since as the article notes: "In the United States, the primary use for indigo is as a dye for cotton work clothes and blue jeans.", you might want to use a pair of jeans as the color image.

One issue on this is that there are two indigo dyes -- the natural indigo dye, which has always been very rare, and the synthesized indigo, developed by Adolf von Baeyer in the 1890s. I do not know from experience if they look exactly the same, or slightly different.

Interestingly, it was the need for a purple dye to replace the very expensive indigo (discovered accidentally by William Henry Perkin in 1856) that lead to the development of much of organic chemistry and the subsequent development of antibiotics:

www.amazon.com/Mauve-Invented-Color-Changed-World/dp/0393323137/

-- Randal

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