Understanding Colors

 

 Understanding Colors


All colors are just the same except for their different wavelengths, which can be between 600 and 700 nanometers.

In order to understand more about a color and its meaning, we have to look at three different aspects of it: its hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is what defines the color. Its saturation defines how intense or vibrant it is. And finally its brightness determines how much lightness or darkness there is in that hue.

Examples of hue are red, orange, yellow, green and violet. The hue is what makes the color different from the others. Saturation is how pure or how saturated the color is. For example, a color that has just one wavelength is 100% saturated because it has all the wavelengths of light present in it. However if we mix different wavelengths of light together to make a new color then that color will not be at its fullest ability to reflect its intensity because it does not have all of its wavelengths present in it making its saturation low. Brightness on the other hand determines how light or dark a color looks. There are different types of brightness depending on what situation you are in. For example, in the daytime, a bright color would be more intense and dark when you look at it in the dark. However with regards to color, brightness determines how much light a color reflects.

A yellow and blue combination is said to have a warmer hue than a red and blue combination because they both have the same amount of wavelengths. The same goes for orange and blue. The difference is that orange has more wavelengths so it is not as pure as blue or red but orange is still more saturated than either one of them.

Conclusion

I hope that you have learned a little more about colors. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in the comment section below. Thank you for reading.

Appendix A: Color Formulas

Color Formula #1: Red + Blue = Green
The red and blue colors mixed together makes green. Red is the base color and blue is the secondary color. They cancel each other out leaving green.
Rewriting this formula only using red + blue = yellow gives us, Red + Blue = Violet . Not surprisingly; violet is the base color of purple and all its variations.

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post