When Cadmium Yellow began to become popular among artists in the mid 19th century it was only natural to ask if the pigment could be adjusted and re-formulated to give lighter and deeper shades. At the time a popular color was Zinc Yellow which had an ideal tone but suffered from reliability problems. Chemists realized that the chemical similarities of the compounds meant they could be combined as a co-precipitate. In doing so the zinc sulfide gained the reliability of the cadmium sulfide while the cadmium gained the pale yellow hue of the zinc sulfide. It is a beautiful primrose yellow color that combines permanence with opacity. The zinc component makes this pale yellow slightly less lightfast than pure cadmium yellow but it is still more permanent than most pigments dream of strive to being. The color is very similar to Lead-Tin Yellow, which was used in the late Renaissance and Mannerist periods and was the only reliably permanent bright yellow available to the old masters.
Cadmium Yellow Light has a color that is close to that of primary yellow and is useful for mixing a wide range of colors. Cadmium Yellow Light is the ideal yellow for working with this a wide color suite ranging from earths tones to the brightest light greens.