explain how the pigments in colored objects such as clothes differ from plant pigments
Green pigments absorb light in the red and blue parts of the spectrum and reflect the green back to our eyes. The major functional difference between chlorophyll and say jade green is that only the chlorophyll in living systems can transfer the absorbed light energy and the excited electron to another molecule, thus trapping it. In biology, pigment is any material resulting in color in plant or animal cells which is the result of selective absorption. Some biological material has so-called structural color, which is the result of selective reflection or iridescence, usually done with multilayer structures. Unlike structural color, pigment color is the same for all viewing angles. Nearly all types of cells, such as skin, eyes, fur and hair contain pigment. Butterfly wings typically contain structural color, although many of them contain pigment as well. Creatures that have deficient pigmentation are called albinos. In the coloring of paint, ink, plastic, fabric and other material, a pigment is a dry colorant, usually an insoluble powder. There are both natural and synthetic pigments, both organic and inorganic ones. Pigments work by selectively absorbing some parts of the visible spectrum (see light) whilst reflecting others. A distinction is usually made between a pigment, which is insoluble, and a dye, which is either a liquid, or is soluble. There is no well-defined dividing line between pigments and dyes, however, and some coloring agents are used as both pigments and dyes. In some cases, a pigment will be made by precipitating a soluble dye with a metallic salt. The resulting pigment is called a lake.
