Red vs Green?

[Dusty]

I have always noticed this problem, though I'm not entirely sure how big of a problem it is, and if there's even a solution. The problem is when you put red on green and vice-versa, it creates a contrasting effect in which it makes the inner color 'pop' out.

For example:

I see a 'highlight' on the left side of the circle and a 'shadow' on the right side.

I've tried applying some AA by adding some transitional colors like yellow, but that didn't really seem to have the slightest effect. Am I doing the AA wrong? Or is it just one of those things you have to learn to ignore?

[Ambient]

If you look at your spectrum (standard box: PS, MS Paint, GG), you'll see that if you wrap the image, it looks like the wheel above. You'll notice the same issues with Blue/Orange, Yellow/Purple, and all other such pairs. This is because red and green are inverts. That means they are on the opposite side of the color wheel. If you choose to use them together and AA it, whichever direction on the wheel you choose will be as good as the other. I have no idea why computers use RGB instead of RYB. Personally, I never put inverts together; it's against my current art rules.

[Dusty]

Honestly, the only colors I have problems with are red and green, not the other inverts.

[Tourist]

I think it's a consequence of the hardware.  LCD screens have narrow strips of R, G, B, for each pixel.  Like this:

 RGB RGB RGB RGB


Put red next to green and you get

R__ _G_

The three blanks between the R and G make roughly one pixel width that is blacked out, so you see a shadow on the right.

On the other side, you get

_G_ R__

I suspect the brightness is a consequence of the two components being close together.  It could trick your eye to try and interpret this as a single light pixel.  Or maybe there is some bleed where the blue piece is not perfectly darkened.

I don't know about compensating for it though.

Tourist

[Ambient]

I used a programs anti-aliasing tool on this with inverts from the color wheel. It looks like dark outlines on light colors because of color brilliance. In black and white, even though with the red/green, they have the exact same value/luminance.
To me, there is no solution to blending inverts. I'd go with really smooth splines or lines without anti-aliasing to do this if I had to. Also, if you look closely, the anti-aliasing seems to extrude the circles to the center like buttons. Look closer, and the anti-aliasing is mirrored, so this is just an illusion. Probably due to the brilliance of yellow drawing the eye's focus.
Edit:

If you look at the gradient (cg), the colors go through a colors that look like crap, and which seem darker in the middle.

[Jakten]

I think you are talking about colour vibrations, which do happen outside of the computer world as well. Red and Green are the most noticeable but here is a pretty good example of blue and orange. It happens when complementary colours are highly saturated and roughly the same value. I forget the exact reason though.

[Jad]

Ambient, that's a nice explanation, but I think tourist has isolated the issue.

The left sides of the blobs are indeed brighter and a bit yellowish because there are R and G leds in close proximity, which blend and emits a yellow colour.

The right sides of the blobs are indeed darker because of the distance between leds.

I guess you could overcome this by thinking about the leds positioning and darkening/brightening certain other colors, but I don't really know at all.

[Ryumaru]

 I have no idea why computers use RGB instead of RYB. Personally, I never put inverts together; it's against my current art rules.

Because computers show us images using light, of which the primary colors are RGB and not RYB ( red and green make yellow in light). Also, complimentary colors are some of the simplest, most effective means of a successful, striking color scheme- there is no reason not to use them.

[Sleepless]

 I have no idea why computers use RGB instead of RYB. Personally, I never put inverts together; it's against my current art rules.

Because computers show us images using light, of which the primary colors are RGB and not RYB ( red and green make yellow in light). Also, complimentary colors are some of the simplest, most effective means of a successful, striking color scheme- there is no reason not to use them.

This is definitely correct, because the primary colors of light are red, green and blue, as opposed to pigments, where it is red, yellow and blue.