In contact with

classmates

In this article, you will learn

• What is color saturation
• How the main characteristics of color are interrelated
• What color saturation depends on, and what does it affect
• How to change color saturation using special programs
• How color saturation affects the choice of paper for printing printing

Good color rendition is an important issue when printing any printed product. Clarity, maximum color saturation - these are the features of attractive printing, which can become a truly working way of promoting. Bright leaflets and catalogs, attention-grabbing information stands, booklets will make you remember their content and ideas for a long time.

What is color saturation

Saturation is the level of intensity of the hue. Paints can be saturated only in their pure form, but not when they are combined with others. The most intense colors are not often used. There are many answers to the question "how to increase the saturation of colors?" and techniques for changing the saturation level. For example, if you add black, white, or shades of gray to a bright paint, the intensity of the base color will decrease. For the same purpose, paints of different colors are mixed.

Another way to change the saturation level is to blend the selected hue with its complementary color. This is considered to be located opposite in the traditional color wheel. For example, orange becomes muted if you add a complementary blue to it.

In reality, you rarely see pure colors, which means that when making an image, it is important to change the color saturation in time. Since there are many subtle halftones, you need to be able to distinguish between them when choosing a color combination.

Lightness and color saturation as the main characteristics

The work of the color-sensitive receptors in the human eye affects the vision of color. This is due to the ratio of reactions of all receptors, there are 3 types of them. Their general behavior affects how light the image will be. Changes in the radiation power affect lightness, and when the wavelength changes, the visible hue and color saturation are converted. Consider these concepts by presenting a colored board. One part of it is in direct sunlight, and the other in the shade. These halves are characterized by the same color tone, but they are distinguished by their lightness. All these properties are united by the concept of "color". As the example shows, hue and color saturation are included in the qualitative subjective characteristics of color, and lightness is considered a subjective quantitative trait.

Thus, all 3 of the above phenomena are properties of colors that the eye recognizes, with the exception of white, gray and black. Let's consider them in order.

Color tone

Hue is a sensory trait. It is described by the words: blue, orange, etc. If the object is not a light source, then its tone is proportional to the level of spectral transparency of objects and reflection for objects that do not possess the first property. For a person, the phenomenon we are discussing in this section is directly related to the familiar environment. Therefore, most of the names come from the names of things of a similar color. These are such colors as lemon, emerald, azure, blood red, sand, etc. However, perception is subjective and depends, in addition to physical laws, on emotions, professional skills, habits, and other characteristics of a person.

Color saturation

The next characteristic of color perceived by a person - saturation - determines its richness. So, in a row of reds, it is easy to choose options in which a more active red tone. They appear bright red. Brightness and color saturation are related to the concentration of the dye. By increasing the amount, it is easy to increase the saturation of the solution, paint.

The color saturation of objects becomes highest as soon as the objects are under the illumination of their corresponding color. An experienced person is able to distinguish in natural light a maximum of 180 tones and sixteen levels of saturation. That is, this area contains 1880 varieties of pure colors and a huge, definite number of complex ones. In dim light, the amount of perceived colors is reduced. The perception of objects is radically transformed if colored light is applied. It is known that in the blue reflections of the moon, everything appears black.

Chroma and color saturation are expressed by objective physical parameters. The color tone is characterized by the wavelength of the "single frequency" radiation. We add that in colorless lighting it is perceived in color the same as the object in question. The wavelength with such monochromatic radiation is considered dominant. Purity is a quantitative expression of saturation. It is a fraction of a single frequency stream combined with white lighting. In other words, purity is defined as the power of monochromatic radiation divided by the power of all visible radiation that produces a particular color. As a result, the color will be clearer if the strength of the first light is higher and the white light level is lower. The maximum purity of spectral colors is 1. In them, the white level corresponds to 0.

Lightness

Lightness is the last metric that describes objective brightness. If you take things of different colors, obviously, some of them will be lighter, some will be darker. Their difference in color tone does not bother us. By comparing the colors of a certain object in light and shadow, the viewer notices the difference in light and color in its areas. For example, yellow objects are lighter than purple objects.

What determines the saturation of colors

Saturation, in other words, the purity of a color is related to the volume of white, black, gray spectral hue in the paint. If there is a lot of one of them in the composition, then the shade becomes more dull. It will be lighter or darker relative to the original version.

Depending on the degree of saturation, the colors can be of three types:

• Maximum saturated colors- these are the colors of the spectrum and magenta range (non-spectral).
• Saturated- colors with pronounced chromaticity.
• Low-saturated colors- these are colors with achromatic inclusions, that is: light blue, pale yellow, cream, as well as gray-blue, light green, burgundy, gray-violet, dark brown.

Chromatic ones have such a quality trait as chromaticity: hue and color saturation. For achromatic, it is only important how light or dark they are.

Color saturation, like brightness, appears to be different when compared. Yellow in the center of the spectrum is less saturated than near the edges. But in terms of lightness (brightness), it stands above other colors in its group.

Achromatic color is a color that has no color. It sounds illogical, but such a definition is accepted among scientists studying this issue. This concept includes black, gray, white colors. According to the spectral theory of color, it is incorrect to include achromatic colors in the list, since they do not have the main chromatic feature - hue and color saturation. If the purity of the latter corresponds to 100%, then in achromatic ones this indicator is zero. Therefore, you should not blindly believe the meaning of the phrase "white". However, these phrases have become established, they are simple, therefore they have been preserved in science.

The combination of chromatic and achromatic colors makes up the variety of colors and shades that exist in the world and in the everyday environment of a person, including.

How to adjust color saturation when designing a print layout

The computer screen is capable of rendering objects with high color saturation. But in offset printing, the four base colors overlap. It is important to remember this when choosing shades and combinations in design. Too thick layer of paint may not have time to dry and will stain the next sheet.

When you apply uniform fills in CMYK shades in a layout, the best result can be achieved with shades consisting of 1 or 2 colors out of four (for example, magenta and cyan).

Do not use shades of base colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) with a density of less than 10%, since when printed they come out much lighter than on the monitor. Whenever possible, choose shades between 10% and 30%.

Beware of homogeneous fills that take up a lot of space, as even slight variations in color will be noticeable. It is better to apply textures instead.

Offset printing is done with liquid inks, therefore, they need time to dry on paper. If the substance did not have time to do this, then the sheets, upon contact, will stain each other. This is called overshooting. There are various methods to eliminate it. One of them is the correct preliminary preparation of the layout.

In full color printing, each color is built from shades of base colors. For example, blue contains 100% cyan, 72% purple, and 10% black. Adding these numbers together gives a total saturation of 182% (100% + 72% + 10%). The maximum possible density is 400% (100% C + 100% M + 100% Y + 100% B). We advise you not to exceed the total amount of 225%. In other words, if you add up the percentages of all colors, you should get no more than 225%. Small volumes, headlines and logos will take up to 275%. However, exceeding this figure will lead to printing problems and a significant increase in production times.

Also, when designing your layout, pay attention to black in the CMYK color model. As you know, the combination of CMY colors at 100% does not give pure black on printing, but rather dark brown. There is one more problem - the imposition of 3 color channels on small details. The inaccuracy makes such a printing method impossible for the printing industry, where text is the main one. Of course, large letters can be printed with three layers of paint, but letters less than 6 pt in size will provoke a lot of difficulties.

It is also important to remember about the high cost of using three paints when only black is required. In addition to the price, there are a number of difficulties, for example, the blotting ability of newsprint from three layers of paint. Business card paper will take on colors, but with newspapers it will be difficult.

Despite the existing advantages, the single black has a serious problem: it is a very gray and low-saturated color. Although he works on medium-sized text, he is completely useless in creativity. Consequently, experts choose “rich black” or Progressive Black.

Setting it up is easy. You just need to put K100 and add 50% Cyan, 50% Yellow and 50% Magenta. In many industries - most of the time it affects newspapers - there are limits on the total percentage of ink. Since saturated black C100 M100 Y100 K100 gives 400%, it is stupid to spend such an amount on one piece of newsprint, the more there will be spots and streaks.

How is color saturation possible

The tools for adjusting saturation in Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom are very similar. How to increase the saturation of colors in Photoshop? Very simple: Image> Adjustments> Hue / Saturation. There are three items in the dialog box: "Hue", "Saturation", "Lightness". "Saturation" allows you to vary the strength of the colors seen in the photo, while "Hue" affects the color itself. It is possible to edit images through a common channel or select a specific option in the drop-down menu. And also change only the selected color using the "Color Eye dropper" in the lower right corner of the dialog box. To do this, click the tool at the selected point in the drawing. The sliders near the color bars at the bottom allow you to determine the width of the selectable color area.

As already mentioned, the "Hue" engine physically changes the colors in the photo, distributing them according to new values. What is happening is shown by two colored stripes closer to the lower area of ​​the dialog box. The upper bar shows the color that is currently present in the image, and the second - what it will be after the transformation by this function. You can move along both stripes using the "Hue" slider, it will change colors in accordance with the position of the pointers on two stripes at once.

There is limited application of color correction to the entire image, but combining the Hue setting with the Color Eye droppers gives you ample scope for local color changes. This option is much more convenient.

Photoshop also offers a tool for managing color saturation - "Vibrance". In Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom, it affects colors in the same way as Hue / Saturation, but protects skin tones. It works more intensively in areas of weak colors than saturated ones.

How to use color saturation to create contrast

The quality of the paint implies purity and richness. The phrase "saturation contrast" defines a comparison of saturated, clear colors with faded, muted. Colors produced by refracting white light have maximum saturation.

Pigment colors also have the highest saturation. But as soon as operations on darkening, lightening are performed on pure colors, their saturation evaporates.

The purity of colors can be lost for four reasons:

1. Pure color can be mixed with white, which gives a relatively cold tone. In carmine red, in combination with white, a bluishness appears, which radically changes its perception. In this case, yellow is also converted to a relatively cold one, and blue practically does not change, does not lose color saturation. Purple is incredibly susceptible to white influences. For example, deep dark purple looks menacing, adding purple hues to it, and this gives the viewer a sense of calmness when looking at an object of this color.
2. Pure color can be mixed with black. With this option, the yellow color loses its radiance, and a bloom of soreness and toxicity appears. Black accentuates the anxiety characteristic of purple tones, gives a peculiar feeling of weakness and lethargy. By adding black to bright red, we get purple. The blue gets darker. Even a small amount of black paint can negate its purity. Green is more flexible than purple and blue. Black removes all of the listed colors from light, destroys the purity of color.
3. The rich color is easily weakened, by adding to it a mixture of black and white, that is, gray. From its appearance, the tones come out lighter or darker, but undoubtedly less active than before. Paints in which gray has been mixed are called "blind".
4. Pure colors are easy to diversify by adding appropriate complementary colors. Add yellow to purple and get intermediate options from light yellow to dark purple. Green and red are close to each other in lightness, therefore together they form gray-black. Combinations of two complementary colors with white make up interesting shades of great complexity.

When the mixture contains 3 "first order" colors, it appears dull, lackluster. Depending on the ratio, it can be closer to yellowish, reddish, bluish or black shades. With the 3 primary colors, all degrees of reduced color saturation in the paint are achievable. The same rule applies to 3 "second order" colors and any combination where 3 primary colors are observed: yellow, red and blue.

The opposition "faded - saturated" is not always unconditional. Absolutely every color will seem to you saturated in comparison with pronounced faded, and vice versa.

If you need to get an expressive composition, exclusively playing with the saturation of colors, then we recommend creating faded colors on the basis of saturated ones. Then pure red should argue with its faded version, and deep blue with faded blue. However, you should not use, for example, pure red with faded blue or red with faded green. Here saturation comparison will be replaced by any other comparison, such as cold and warm. And the action of the initially opposite will become controversial.

Interestingly, the gray variants appear alive to the viewer thanks to their neighboring solid colors. Let us illustrate this. Let the cells on the "chessboard" be colored gray one by one, and in the remaining squares there are pure, saturated colors of the same lightness. Obviously, the gray color will be transferred to liveliness, and the chromatic colors will turn out to be less rich, more weakened.

How printing method affects color saturation

Printing houses use two methods of printing printed products:

1. Digital seal. Such printing is carried out using a laser beam on a laser printer. With it, it is possible to get a deeper and more saturated color. A feature of this type is the ability to make changes to the finished template. Digital printing is typical for low-volume printing, and any type of paper is suitable for it. The finished product is heat-treated, so the paint dries quickly. This feature allows fast post-printing.
2. Offset printing is more economical than the first option. In the manufacture of a large circulation, the cost per unit of production is not so high. But this comes at the price of low color saturation. The color rendition in this variant is also difficult to control. Note that sampling is expensive. Because of this, the customer may end up with a product in a different format, less deep in color than what was intended.

How color saturation affects the choice of paper for printing

High-quality color reproduction, in addition to a correctly composed layout, requires high-quality ink, paper and serviceable modern printing equipment. The characteristics with which the printer works are the size and weight of the paper, the circulation. There are types of paper:

• newspaper;
• design;
• coated and offset.

The higher the density of the paper, the higher the color saturation and better color reproduction will be provided to you. Thin newsprint quickly absorbs ink and distorts shades; therefore, such publications are made in most cases in black and white on low quality paper. Full color printing can be done on offset paper. What is important - among it there are options for budget printing.

Coated paper has a dense structure and is suitable for good color rendering. Enhancing colors on thick paper allows the reception of gloss. This makes the products pleasant not only visually, but also to the touch. This technology is common in magazine printing. In addition to gloss, matte coated paper is loved by customers. It retains a rich hue without glare, which looks natural and vibrant.

The size and weight of paper for printing in a printing house depends on the needs and requests of the client. If color reproduction and color saturation are important, it is better to choose among high-quality thick paper options. It allows you to transfer the necessary shades without streaks and achieve the desired effect without additional equipment settings.

Color plays a huge role not only in art, but also in everyday life. Few people think about how strongly different combinations of shades affect human perception, mood and even thinking. This is a kind of phenomenon that operates according to its seemingly ghostly, but clear laws. Therefore, it is not so difficult to subordinate him to his will so that he works for the good: you just need to figure out how he acts.

Concept

Color is a subjective characteristic of electromagnetic radiation in the optical range, which is determined based on the resulting visual impression. The latter depends on many physiological and psychological reasons. His understanding can be equally influenced by his spectral composition and the personality of the perceiving person.

To put it more simply, color is the impression that a person receives when a beam of light rays penetrates the retina. A ray of light with the same spectral composition can cause different sensations in different people due to the distinctive characteristics of the sensitivity of the eye, therefore, for each person, the shade can be perceived differently.

Physics

The color vision that appears in the mind of a person includes semantic content. The tone appears during the absorption of light waves: for example, a blue ball looks like this only because the material from which it is created absorbs all shades of the light beam, with the exception of the blue, which it reflects. Therefore, when we talk about a blue ball, we only mean that the molecular composition of its surface is capable of absorbing all colors of the spectrum, except for blue. The ball itself has no tone, like any object on the planet. Color is born only in the process of illumination, in the process of perception of waves by the eye and processing of this information by the brain.

A clear distinction of hue and its basic characteristics between the eyes and the brain can be achieved through comparison. Therefore, the values ​​can only be determined by comparing the color with another achromatic shade, including black, white and gray. The brain is also able to compare hue with other chromatic tones in the spectrum by analyzing the tone. Perception refers to a psychophysiological factor.

Psychophysiological reality is, in fact, a color effect. The hue and its effect can coincide when using harmonic midtones - in other situations, the color can be modified.

It is important to know the basic characteristics of flowers. This concept includes not only its actual perception, but also the influence of various factors on it.

Basic and additional

Mixing certain pairs of colors can give the impression of white. Opposite tones are called complementary, which, when mixed, give gray. The RGB triad is named after the main colors of the spectrum - red, green and blue. Additional in this case will be cyan, purple and yellow. On the color wheel, these shades are located in opposition, opposite each other so that the values ​​of the two color triplets alternate.

Let's talk in more detail

The main physical characteristics of color include the following points:

• brightness;
• contrast (saturation).

Each characteristic can be quantified. The fundamental differences in the basic characteristics of color are that brightness means lightness or darkness. This is the content in it of a light or dark component, black or white, while contrast informs information about the content of a gray tone: the less it is, the higher the contrast.

Also, any shade can be specified by three peculiar coordinates that represent the main characteristics of a color:

• lightness;
• saturation.

These three indicators are able to determine a specific shade, starting from the main tone. The main characteristics of color and their fundamental differences are described by the science of color, which is engaged in a deep study of the properties of this phenomenon and its influence on art and life.

Tone

The color characteristic is responsible for the location of the hue in the spectrum. The chromatic tone is somehow referred to as one or another part of the spectrum. Thus, shades that are in the same part of the spectrum (but differ, for example, in brightness) will belong to the same tone. When changing the position of a shade along the spectrum, its color characteristic changes. For example, shifting blue towards green changes the tone to cyan. Moving in the opposite direction, blue will tend to red, taking on a purple hue.

Coldness

Often, the change in tone is associated with the warmth of the color. Red, red and yellow shades are classified as warm, associating them with fiery, "warming" colors. They are associated with the corresponding psychophysical reactions in human perception. Blue, purple, blue symbolize water and ice, referring to cold shades. The perception of "warmth" is associated with both physical and psychological factors of an individual personality: preferences, mood of the observer, his psycho-emotional state, adaptation to environmental conditions, and much more. Red is considered the warmest, blue is the coldest.

It is also necessary to highlight the physical characteristics of the sources. Color temperature is largely associated with the subjective feeling of warmth of a particular shade. For example, the tone of a thermal study as the temperature rises passes through the "warm" tones of the spectrum from scarlet to yellow and finally white. However, cyan has the highest color temperature, which is nevertheless considered a cold shade.

Activity is also among the main characteristics within the hue factor. Red is said to be the most active, while green is the most passive. This characteristic can also change somewhat under the influence of the subjective gaze of different people.

Lightness

Shades of the same hue and saturation can refer to different degrees of lightness. Consider this characteristic in mind of blue. With the maximum value of this characteristic, it will be close to white, having a delicate bluish tint, and with a decrease in the value, blue will become more and more similar to black.

Any tone will turn into black when the lightness is lowered, and white when the lightness is increased.

It should be noted that this indicator, like all other basic physical characteristics of color, can largely depend on subjective conditions associated with the psychology of human perception.

By the way, shades of different tones, even with the same actual lightness and saturation, are perceived by a person differently. Yellow is in fact the lightest, while blue is the darkest shade in the chromatic spectrum.

With a high characteristic, yellow differs from white even less than blue is distinguishable from black. It turns out that the yellow tone has even greater lightness of its own than "darkness" is characteristic of blue.

Saturation

Saturation is the level of difference of a chromatic hue from an achromatic equal in lightness. In fact, saturation is a characteristic of depth, color purity. Two shades of the same tone can have different levels of fading. As the saturation decreases, any color will become closer to gray.

Harmony

Another of the common characteristics of color, which describes a person's experience of combining several shades. Each person is endowed with their own preferences and tastes. Therefore, people have different ideas about the harmony and disharmony of different types of colors (with color characteristics inherent in them). Harmonious combinations are called similar in tone or shades from different intervals of the spectrum, but with a similar lightness. As a rule, harmonious combinations do not have high contrast.

As for the rationale for this phenomenon, this concept should be considered in isolation from subjective opinions and personal tastes. The impression of harmony arises in the conditions of the fulfillment of the law on complementary colors: the equilibrium state corresponds to a gray tone of medium lightness. It is obtained not only by mixing black and white, but also by a pair of additional shades, if they contain the main colors of the spectrum in a certain proportion. All combinations that do not give gray when mixed are considered disharmonious.

Contrasts

Contrast is the difference between two shades, found out by comparing them. Studying the main characteristics of color and their fundamental differences, seven types of contrast manifestations can be identified:

1. Contrast of comparisons. The most pronounced are variegated blue, yellow and red. As you move away from these three tones, the intensity of the shade decreases.
2. Contrast of dark and light. There is the lightest and the darkest shades of the same color, and in between there are countless manifestations.
3. Contrast of cold and warm. Red and blue are recognized as poles of contrast, and other colors can be warmer or colder in accordance with how they relate to other cold or warm tones. This contrast is only known by comparison.
4. The contrast of complementary colors - those shades that, when mixed, give a neutral gray. Opposing tones need each other to balance. Couples have their own types of contrasts: yellow and violet are the contrast of light and dark, and red-orange and blue-green are warmth.
5. Simultaneous contrast is simultaneous. This is a phenomenon in which the eyes, when perceiving a particular color, need an additional shade, and in its absence, it generates it on its own. Simultaneously generated shades are an illusion that does not exist in reality, but it creates a special impression from the perception of color combinations.
6. Saturation contrast characterizes the opposite of saturated colors with faded ones. The phenomenon is relative: the tone, even if not pure, may appear brighter next to a faded shade.
7. Color spreading contrast describes the relationship between color planes. He has the ability to enhance the manifestation of all other contrasts.

Spatial impact

Color has properties that can affect the perception of depth through the contrasts of dark and light, as well as changes in saturation. For example, all light tones against a dark background will visually protrude forward.

As for warm and cold shades, warm tones will come to the fore, and cold tones will go deeper.

With saturation contrast, vibrant colors stand out against muted hues.

Spread contrast, also called color plane magnitude contrast, plays a huge role in the illusion of depth.

Color is an amazing phenomenon in this world. He is able to influence perception, deceive the eye and brain. But if you figure out how this phenomenon works, you can not only maintain clarity of perception, but also make it so that color becomes a faithful assistant in life and art.

Color saturation (intensity) is the degree to which a particular tone is expressed. The concept comes next after brightness. Photo.

Saturation (intensity) is the degree to which a particular color is expressed. It operates in the redistribution of one, where the degree of saturation is determined by the purity of the reflection of a certain spectrum from the surface. The more accurately and fully the reflection goes, the more saturated the shade we see. If the surface does not perfectly reflect one wave, but there is an impurity, then such shades are usually paler. They can be grayish, brownish, or with a different tint, they can be characterized as dusty, foggy, complex, soft, etc. Saturated colors can be characterized as bright, catchy, full, expressive, spectacular, etc.

Saturation is also related to. But if brightness is a relative value: white can also be catchy, then saturation is an attribute of chromatic tone. A pure tone, without an admixture of gray, with a moderate presence of white or black, is the standard of this concept.
In contrast to this definition, there will be shade fading - the higher the contamination of the paint, the more complex the resulting shade and closer to gray. Pallor, pallor can be defined as the absence of brightness, however, we also understand that this is a light, muted (pastel) tone or with a significant admixture of gray.

USEFUL ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC (click on the picture)

Color tone

What is designated by the word "color" in the professional vocabulary of artists is defined by the term "color tone" in scientific color science.

Hue - the quality of the chromatic color, in the definition of which the color is called red, yellow, blue, green; color feature differ from other colors of the spectrum. In our minds, the color tone is associated with the color of familiar objects. Many names for colors come from objects with a characteristic color: sand, emerald, chocolate, cherry, which indicates the inextricable connection of color with the objective world. The terms "lightness" and "color tone" are closely related in their content to the concepts of "light" and "color". In nature, color tone and lightness are inseparable. And their separation is one of the conventions of fine art, depending on the artist's creative attitude, the type of his vision, the material and technique used by him. However, between the concepts of "lightness" and "color tone" it is impossible to draw an absolute distinction and theoretically. If, for example, we take a blue paint, diluted to varying degrees with whitewash, then we have light gradations or its changes in lightness. The same will happen with any other paint, but if we take one of the lighter shades of blue and one of the lighter shades of red. Then we will have to have pink and blue paints. "Painting is the transmission in tone (that is, the luminosity of color), plus the color, of the visible material" - said NP Krymov. This once again testifies to the fact that every color spot contains a color characterized by three interrelated indicators - "lightness", "color tone", "saturation". And when the paint changes in lightness, some paints have less, while others have a greater change in color tone.

Saturation

Saturation - strength of color - the degree of difference of a chromatic color from a gray color equal to it in lightness; the degree of approximation to the pure spectral color or the percentage of color in a given shade. The closer the color approaches the spectral, the stronger its difference from gray, the more saturated it is. Pink, light yellow, light blue, or dark brown are low-saturated colors. In practice, low-saturation colors are obtained by adding white or black paint to the chromatic color. From the impurity of white, the color brightens, from the black paint - it darkens. Darkening or lightening a color always lowers its saturation. Saturation also depends on the hue. Yellow is always richer than red, red is blue.

In color science, it is often not the visually perceived saturation that is measured, but the so-called purity, or colorimetric color saturation, which is determined by the ratio of the brightness of the spectral component to the total brightness of the color. Color purity is a relative value and is usually expressed as a percentage. The purity of spectral colors is taken as one, or 100 percent, and the purity of achromatic colors is zero. By knowing the hue, lightness, and color saturation, any color can be quantified. The slightest change in one of the three values ​​that determine color results in a change in color. The method for determining color according to the three listed characteristics, convenient in that the color can be quantified, is successfully used in various fields of science and technology, including printing, textile production, color television, etc., where special devices are used to measure color - spectrophotometers and colorimeters of various systems. All methods for determining color in colorimetry are based on comparing colors that lie in the same plane and are in the same lighting conditions. In painting, when working from life, the artist must analyze and compare the colors inherent in volumetric objects of complex shape or objects, which, as a rule, are surrounded by a color environment or objects of a different color and which are located on several, sometimes quite distant from each other, plans and therefore also different lighting conditions.

Color circle

The colors of the spectrum - red, yellow, blue - are called primary colors. They cannot be obtained by mixing other colors. If you mix the two extreme colors of the spectrum - red and violet, you get a new intermediate color - magenta. As a result, we have eight colors that are considered the most important in practice: they are yellow, orange, red, magenta, violet, blue, cyan and green. By closing this strip in a ring, you can get a color wheel with the same sequence of colors as in the spectrum. If you mix adjacent colors in different proportions in a color wheel of eight colors, you can get many intermediate shades. Mixing orange with yellow, we get orange-yellow and yellow-orange, etc. Color wheels can be different in the number of colors they contain, but no more than 150, because does not distinguish more eyes.

The color wheel can be divided into two parts so that one part includes red, orange, yellow and yellow-green colors, and the other - blue-green, blue, blue, violet. The first of them are called warm colors, the second - cold. The classification of colors as warm or cold is based on the fact that red, orange and yellow colors resemble the color of fire, sunlight, incandescent objects; blue, blue, purple colors resemble the color of water, air distance, ice. Pure green is considered neutral. It can be warm if yellowish shades are noticeable in it, and cold if bluish and bluish shades prevail in it.

There are several signs of color, the main ones are THREE: hue, saturation, and lightness.

Color tone determines the place of the color in the spectrum ("red-green-yellow-blue", etc.). This is the main characteristic of color. Physically, the COLOR TONE depends on the wavelength of the light. Long waves are the red part of the spectrum. Short - shift towards the blue-violet side. The average wavelength is yellow and green, which are most optimal for the eye.

In our minds, the color tone is associated with the color of well-known objects. Many color names come directly from objects with a characteristic color: sand, sea wave, emerald, chocolate, coral, raspberry, cherry, cream. It is easy to guess that the color tone is determined by the name of the color (yellow, red, blue) and depends on its place in the spectrum.

It is interesting to know that a trained eye in bright daylight distinguishes up to 180 color tones and up to 10 levels (gradations) of saturation. In general, the developed human eye is able to distinguish about 360 shades of color.

The degree of chromaticity of the color is determined saturation... This is the degree to which a color is removed from a gray of the same lightness. Imagine dust covering the fresh grass by the road, layer by layer. The more layers of dust, the less visible the original pure green color, the less the SATURATION of this green. The colors with the maximum saturation are spectral colors, the minimum saturation gives full achromatic (no hue).

There are 3 ways to change saturation:

§ adding black to the spectral color,

§ adding white to the spectral color,

§ adding a contrasting pair to the spectral color (for example: add blue-green to red-orange)

The third sign of color is LIGHT... Any colors and shades, regardless of the color tone, can be compared in terms of lightness, that is, to determine which of them is darker and which is lighter.

Lightness- this is the power of color. Initially (spectrally) the lightest is yellow. The darkest is blue. this is the position of the color on a scale from white to black. It is characterized by the words "dark red" or "light red". For achromatic ones, the maximum LIGHT is white, the minimum is black.

Lightness is a quality inherent in both chromatic and achromatic colors. Lightness should not be confused with whiteness (as the quality of an object's color).

It is customary for artists to call light relationships tonal, therefore, one should not confuse light and color tone, cut-off and color structure of the work. When they say that a picture is painted in light colors, then first of all they mean light relations, and in color it can be gray-white, and pinkish-yellow, light lilac, in a word very different.

Any colors and shades can be compared in terms of lightness: pale green with dark green, pink with blue, red with purple.

It is interesting to note that red, pink, green, brown and other colors can be both light and dark colors.

Due to the fact that we remember the colors of the objects around us, we imagine their lightness. For example, a yellow lemon is lighter than a blue tablecloth, and we remember that yellow is lighter than blue.

Achromatic colors, that is, gray, white and black, are characterized only by lightness. The differences in lightness are that some colors are darker while others are lighter.

Any chromatic color can be compared in lightness with an achromatic color.

You can compare the colors: red and gray, pink and light gray, dark green and dark gray, purple and black. Achromatic colors are matched in lightness equal to chromatic ones.