Color Theory
When starting out as a designer, there are a lot of new terms to understand, especially with color. So… here is a glossary for when you get stuck! Please note that this is the glossary found in Color Design Workbook. We found this glossary to be the best we came across. This is a great book and we’d recommend it to anyone. Achromatic is the state of possessing no discernible hue and being without color. Additive colors are produced by superimposing red, green and blue light rays. All of these colors combine to create white light.Computer monitors and television screens use additive color. Advancing colors appear nearer to the observer than receding colors. Warmer, higher-chroma and lighter-valued colors tend to advance. Afterimages are complementary color images generated by the eye in response to overstimulation or retinal fatigue. Analogous colors are hues that are adjacent on the color wheel, so they usually match fairly well, but provide little contrast when used together. Blends are areas of an image that transition from one color to another. Blends are also called graduated tints or graduations. Brilliance is the quality of high light reflection and strong hue typically found in saturated colors. Brightness is the amount of light reflected by a particular color. Brightness is also called value. Chroma is the relative purity or strength of a hue, or its freedom from white, black and gray. Chroma is a synonym fro intensity and saturation. CIE stands for Commission International de l’Eclairage, an internation color consortium. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the colors of the subtractive color system used in offset lithography printing. They are also called process colors. Color is a perceptual sensation created in the human mind in response to certain wavelengths of electromagnetic energy that constitute the visible spectrum of light. Human perception of and respose to these wavelengths is affected by many factors including physiology, psychology, language and culture. Colorimetry is the technical term for the scientific measurement of color. Color constancy is the ability of the human eye and brain to perceive colors accurately under a variety of lighting conditions, compensating automatically for any differences. Color correction is the process of adjusting the color values of an image to correct or compensate for errors in photography, scanning or seperation. Color reduction is the process of reducing the number of colors in a digital image in order to make the file smaller. Color seperation is the porcess of seperating images and artwork into cyan, magenta, yellow and black in preparation for printing. Color space is the range of colors achievable by any single reproduction device. Color tetrads are sets of four colors, equally spaced on the color wheel, that contain a primary color, its complement, and a compleemntary pair of intermediaries. The term can also indicate any organization of color on the wheel forming a rectangle that could include a double split complement. Color triads are sets of three colors, equally spaced on the color wheel, that form an equilateral triangle. Color wheels are circular diagrams representing the spectrum of visible colors and illustration their relationships. Complementary colors are two colors opposite each other on the color wheel. They tend to intensify each other when used together and create a neutral color when mixed. Cool colors are greens, blues and violets. Duotones are two-color halftones reproduced from a black-and-white or color photograph. The term can also mean a halftone image rendered in two colors. Fugitives are ink colors that easily fade or deteriorate. Gamut is the range of colors available within a certain color space. Ground is the area that surrounds the central element or a figure in a composition. Another term is background. Harmony is a pleasing subjective state that occurs when two or more colors are used in combination. Hue is the attribute of a color, defined by its dominant wavelength and position in the visible spectrum, that distinguishes it from other colors. The term can also indicate the name of a color. Intensity is a synonym for chroma, which is the relative purity or strength of a hue. Intermediate colors, also called tertiary colors, are made by mixing a secondary and a primary color together. Lightness is the blackness or whiteness of a color. Luminance is the brightness of a color. Metamerism is the undesirable phenomenon that occurs when two colors that appear to match under one set of light conditions do not match under another set of conditions. Monochromatic is the state of containing only one color. Neutral colors are black, gray, white, browns, beiges and tans. They do not appear on color wheels. Optical color mixing, also called partitive color, is a perception of color that results from the combining of adjacent color by the eye and brain. Palette is a a group of colors used by a designer in a specific design. PANTONE Matching System (PMS) is a patented system of inks, color specifications, and color guides used for reproducing colors. Primary colors are pure hues from which all other colors can be mixed. They cannot be made by combining other hues. The artist’s mixing primary colors are red, yellow, blue (RYB); the additive primaries are red, green, blue (RGB); and the subtractive primaries are cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY). Process color is four-color reproduction that usees four printing plates, one for each of the subtractive primary colors : cyan (process blue), magenta (process red), yellow (process yellow) plus black (process black). Profile is the colorimetric description of the behavious of an input or output device that can be used by a computer application to ensure accurate transfer of color data. A profile describing the color space used during the image creation or editing should ideally be embedded in the image so it can later serve as a reference for other users, software applications, or display and output devices. RBG stands for red, green and blue, the primary colors of the additive color model. RYB stands for red, yellow and blue, the artist’s primary colors, which are the basis of much color theory taught in art and design schools. Saturation is the measure of the purity of a hue as determined by the amount of gray it contains. The higher the gray level is, the lower the saturation. Saturation is a synonym of chroma. Secondary colors are made by mixing two primary colors. Shades are hues mixed with black to form another darker color. Simultaneous contrast is a human perception anomaly in which colors are affected by adjacent colors. Subtractive colors are those produced by reflected light. Cyan, magenta and yellow inks printed on white paper absorb, or subtract, the red, green and blue portions of the spectrum. Subtractive color mixing is the basis of printed color. Tertiary colors are formed by combining two secondary colors or by combining a primary with an adjacent. Tints are hues mixed with white to form another lighter color. The term also refers to a solid color screened to less than 100 percent to create a lighter shade. Tones are created by mixing a pure hue with its complement or gray. Triadic schemes are color schemes using three colors that are spaced evenly around the color wheel. Value is the relative lightness or darkness of a color. High value is light; low value is dark. Vanishing boundaries occur when two different solid color areas of exactly the same value are placed next to each other; the hard edge seperating the two colors seems to soften or disappear. Vibrating boundaries occur when two different solid color areas, usually near complements of near equal value, are placed next to each other; the results is a noticeable optical fluttering effect. Visible spectrum is the full range of visible hues. The rainbow is a naturally occurring manifestation of the visible spectrum. Warm colors are reds, oranges and yellows.
Color schemes are harmonious color combinations that use any two or more colors. The six classic color schemes are monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic, and tetrodic (also called double complementary).
Spot color is a single solid or screened color printed using one printing plate, as opposed to a process color printed using two or more plates.
(Dedicated to all the Lost Souls SiDians)
