Scanning Around With Gene: When Life Was Oversaturated

I fall into a hard-to-define category when it comes to my preferences for color. Studies say that, as a male, I naturally tend toward brighter and more saturated colors, but as someone who is contemplative and has a somewhat depressed outlook, I go for darker and more subtle tones. One thing I know for sure is that my favorite thing to adjust in Photoshop is saturation. I find it’s the most important consideration when determining the appeal of an image.
So it was fun for me to find a number of photography magazines from the late 1940s when over-saturated images were the standard. Color was a big sales tool back then and not only did the magazines use vivid colors on their covers, but the film companies presented images that were, well, colorful with a capital C. Click on any of the following images (either cover shots or from color film ads) to open larger versions.


Photography as a hobby was, at least at the time of these images, more or less a male pastime, which explains the pictures of women that graced these magazine covers. And since men prefer more saturated colors than women, that may have also factored in to the reproduction techniques in use.


Color reproduction is a tricky business, and not all of the late 1940s over-saturation was by choice. The film emulsions tended toward high saturation, and printing techniques were crude by today’s standards. But I do believe there was a “if we’re going to print color we should make it vivid” attitude back then because color was still not all that common. Most of these magazines, for example, have only a few color pages in the folio; the majority of images are in black and white.


My basic color research uncovered a couple of interesting facts. In addition to men preferring brighter and more saturated colors than women, it seems that babies are even more disposed toward over-saturation. The older we get the less vivid our color choices become.


And people who are outwardly focused and active tend to like warmer and more saturated colors, while introspective and contemplative types prefer cooler, less-saturated ones. And downright depressed people tend toward the dark end of the spectrum.


Perhaps it’s not surprising that we also often like colors that mimic things we like in life: blue skies, green trees, the orange and reds of fall. In fact, some scientists believe we choose our favorite colors almost exclusively based on biological/ecological references.


More tidbits from my research: Highly saturated colors tend to make things look larger in scale, while lower saturation diminishes scale. Americans like more saturated colors than the Japanese or Mexicans, at least according to one study I came across, and we tend toward the warm end of the spectrum. All three cultures have an aversion to browns and olives.


When presented with a variety of colors and asked to choose their favorite, men pick blue more than any other color and women pick red. And men will almost always pick orange as a top color while women prefer yellow.

People who score high on the anxiety scale prefer more subtle, less saturated colors, which are also more calming. I once read that Dunkin Donuts chose its orange and pink color scheme specifically because it was unappealing and made people not want to hang out at their shops taking up table space. And though that story is probably urban legend, it works for me.

In some ways, color preference is pretty simple: bright, perky, happy people like bright, perky, over-saturated colors, while quiet, depressed people go for pastels and darker tones.


We now live in a world where accurate color reproduction is possible, but most point-and-shoot cameras and inkjet printers still tend to crank up the saturation because it’s what people prefer.
What are your color preferences? Do they bear out the study findings? Click the Comments button and let me know!
Follow Gene on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SAWG

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This article was last modified on May 17, 2023

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  1. Priscilla123

    Personally, I happen to like the saturated color look on some photos… I think it makes it more vibrant. On another level, most people don’t realize how certain colors impact our emotions. This is something I only realized during my anxiety treatment, when my therapist advised me to change the clothing colors I would favor, and even re-paint my house.

  2. I love those saturated colors. The women look more intensly feminin, the children appear more idealic and the whole feel is that of the era.
    Color, or the lack of it, helps to tell the story.Todays effort to duplicate reality somehow misses the mark. After all, reality sometimes bites!

  3. Maybe these had such high saturation because of the previous use of Marshall Oils to hand-color photos when color photography was not easily available? Since most hand-colored works I have seen are somewhat over-saturated color-wise, maybe this has something to do with it? Only saying…

  4. A salesman looked at my paintings one day and said he could tell when they were painted by their colors. He proceeded to place them all correctly. When I asked him how he knew he said the brighter, more aggressive colors were by a younger artist and as my perspective changed and my spiritual side grew stronger, the colors became softer and more calm. The paintings ranged from vivid oranges and yellows to blues and pastels. Your piece here reminded me of that long ago perspective. Thanks

  5. I am female, introspective, and lean towards the depressed side. I however, love highly saturated colors. I wish I had glasses that allowed me to see the world that way. It makes me happy and instantly feel good when I see colors like that.

  6. For a girl I prefer blue, but then again I also like bugs, snakes, trains and fishing, hate shopping and can make bodily noises with the “best of em”! So I guess I’m not the norm.
    JH

  7. I’ve seldom been able to choose just one favorite color, although my favorite *combination* is cobalt blue and kelly green. It’s easier for me to state the color I do not like—pink. Other than that, the colors that please my eye at any given moment depend, I’ve discovered, largely on my mood, so my opinion might lean toward orange one day, brown the next, blue or green or yellow later, sometimes a bold red or a subtle beige or grey or olive, bright purple, even black (which is what I usually wear). I am generally not fond of pastel tints, but prefer bold colors to be in jewel tones. There’s nothing more beautiful to me than a rich stained glass window or colored lights during the holidays.

    By the way, I am female, so am not sure how this all fits into those tidy color studies. (My dislike of the color pink is partly due to umbrage over “pink is for girls and blue is for boys.” Do many women actually prefer pink? If so, is that a true preference or is it the result of training from birth? Do those garishly pink cosmetics departments and underwear stores in fact attract customers? Ugh! Repulsive. No pink for me, no thank you!)

    Cheers!
    —Fox Cole

  8. As I was brought up in the 1940s and ’50s, and my Dad worked for Kodak, I was into crayon colors and brightly colored Kodachrome slides (which I still have and some of which are still bright but many have turned purple-ish). But when I scan them, while they do look bright on screen, printing them is another story. I have a Canon printer and while the prints look good, they don’t look as bright as the originals. In a way they look better and I’m quite happy with them. They do look marvelous on the screen. It is fun scanning all the old slides–a good pastime as a retired graphic designer. I do enjoy your articles–keep going “around”.

  9. The physiology, psychology and philosophy of color are still very much in flux, if the number of recent books is any measure. What never changes, though, is the subject matter: lovely gals.

  10. My theory is that back then when everything was black/white (movies, TV, printed materials from newspapers to magazines) and color was introduced… then people became thrilled about being able to use color. So they went crazy about making it a lot more bold and dynamic. Over the years, as things calmed down, people started to get used to it and wanted it to be more realistic and well-balanced. I’m sure you’d agree that this might make sense to how people behaved differently back then and now.

    -Mindy

  11. I love SAWG, thanks for so consistently providing interesting materials and commentary. Are you really somewhat depressed? Given the national political situation, maybe so.

    I’m 54 and male. One favorite color is maroon. Another is the dusk night sky and that beautiful gradient from silver blue into orange. I was surprised by the comment that brown/olive is perceived negatively. I guess instead of brown it’s more rusty red that I love seeing paired w/ olive. I had a boss who had his office painted an olive green which many found unusual. He said that it calmed people down when they met w/ him.

    I’ve been interested in color and have been putting time into working on my skill w/ it. I got into design by way of a 3-year certificate program. At final portfolio presentation, after presenting, my teacher nicely pointed out to me and the other members of the review board, that frankly, my colors were horrendous. Happily I managed to pass and get the certificate. Her lack of tact aside, I figured it was rightly an area to continue working on.

    Thanks again for Scanning Around with Gene.

    PETER WETHERBEE.