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When you place a colored filter over the camera lens or use one of a
digital camera’s colored filter effects, objects of the filter’s color
and similar colors will reproduce lighter and objects of the filter’s
complementary color darker than in a photo made without a filter. The
trick is determining which colors are similar to the filter’s color and
which are complementary. This “color disk” will help.
Colors on the same half of the disk as the filter’s color will appear
lighter in the photo if you shoot through that filter and colors on the
opposite half will appear darker than they would in an unfiltered shot.
The farther along the rim of the disk the colors are from the filter’s
color, the lesser they’ll be lightened or darkened; the closer they are
to the filter’s color, the greater the effect of the filter on them.
For example, when shot through a red filter, red objects will be
lightened most, yellow and magenta objects will be lightened somewhat,
blue and green objects will be darkened somewhat, and cyan objects will
be darkened the most.
Because real-world colors aren’t pure, results will vary somewhat from
scene to scene, but this diagram will give you an idea of what to
expect when you use a colored filter (or a digital camera’s built-in
color filter effect). After you shoot a black-and-white digital image
using a colored filter, display the image on the LCD monitor and zoom
in to see the actual effects. | 
