system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When an object's color is due to absorbing only certain photons, how can it continuously absorb those photons? Why don't the electrons in their excited state remain there, and stop absorbing the light?

A red shirt is red because it absorbs all visible light other than red. How can the shirt continuously absorb all of the other photons? Is the continuous stream of input energy given off through other parts of the EM spectrum?
gpt
Generally those excited electrons have lots of other things to interact with. Vibrations of the atomic nucleii nearby, other electrons of other nearby atoms, etc. This will tend to result in the excited atom losing its excitation energy and transferring it to something else. Eventually, some of this energy may turn back into light, but in the form of thermal radiation, which would be mainly in the IR wavelengths if the shirt is kept at a reasonable temperature for human use.