Most "purple" phals are shades of magenta. Magenta is basically the color in between purple and red. If it's more than 75% red it might even qualify as "cerise", a term you see a lot with roses, but I haven't seen any phals that red.
Purple is a term that is generally used for colors that are closer to 50/50 red/blue. Among orchids, even a 50/50 purple is a bit rare, most tend towards magenta, often with less than 25% blue. The term "blue" gets thrown around for a lot of orchids that are still very much purple, but range from 50/50 to somewhat blue-dominant, like the royal purple of the deeper vandas, or other things often labeled "coerulea" or "violacea", like certain laelias, cattleyas, etc. Even these only rarely reach violet, which is around 75% blue.
Some Thelymitra orchids are genuinely blue, like sky blue, cornflower blue, or even somewhat teal (that's the color between blue and green). I personally wouldn't call any other orchids "blue", most are purple. But I'm an art student, not a plant judge or breeder, so my vocabulary is a little different.
One big issue with all of this-- PHOTOGRAPHS LIE. Bigtime. I have tried numerous times to take pics of my magenta NOID phals, and it's amazing how badly the colors end up getting misrepresented. If the flash is on and I'm close enough for the flowers to be well-lit, they come out electric violet, mostly blue. If the flash isn't on, they come out muddy burgundy. A lot of very strong, rich colors just don't get picked up by cameras properly-- but it's worst when it's a cheap camera with automatic white balance.
Auto white balance is absolutely USELESS when it comes to taking photos with realistic colors. Even a good custom white balance can be iffy. To be honest, flowers being sold online should be shown with multiple photos in different lighting, preferably with the white balance listed for each shot.
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