The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.
Full color image along with its R, G, and B components
The first permanent color photograph, taken by Thomas Sutton in 1861 using James Clerk Maxwell's proposed method of three filters, specifically red, green, and violet-blue
A photograph of Mohammed Alim Khan (1880–1944), Emir of Bukhara, taken in 1911 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky using three exposures with blue, green, and red filters
RGB phosphor dots in a CRT monitor
Additive color or additive mixing is a property of a color model that predicts the appearance of colors made by coincident component lights, i.e. the perceived color can be predicted by summing the numeric representations of the component colors. Modern formulations of Grassmann's laws describe the additivity in the color perception of light mixtures in terms of algebraic equations. Additive color predicts perception and not any sort of change in the photons of light themselves. These predictions are only applicable in the limited scope of color matching experiments where viewers match small patches of uniform color isolated against a gray or black background.
James Clerk Maxwell, with his color top that he used for investigation of color vision and additive color
The first permanent color photograph, taken by Thomas Sutton, under the direction of James Clerk Maxwell in 1861
