1.2: Color Terms

Introduction

The following terms will be used throughout the course in your readings and assignments.

• Achromatic Grays: Grays without hue or saturation, only value. Achromatic means “without color”.
• Additive Color: Color seen as light. Additive primaries are red, green, and blue. When they are combined the result is white light.
• Analogous: Hues are next to each other on the spectrum and the color wheel.
• Bridge Tones: Tones that provide a transition between two different colors. This is achieved by gradually mixing the second color with the first.
• Color Structure: Three factors influence the appearance of color: hue, value, and saturation.
• Chromatic Darks: Dark chromatic grays that have discernible temperature and hue.
• Chromatic Grays: Chromatic grays have relatively low saturation, but still have discernible hue and temperature.
• Color Harmony: The character of the interrelations in groups of colors. Harmonious colors are highly unified. Inharmonious or discordant colors are in disagreement with each other.
• Color Interaction: Quality of a color depends upon its context. An identical color can appear different from a different context to another.
• Color Temperature: Division of warm and cool zones on the color wheel.
  • Warm colors: Red-violet, red, orange, yellow, yellow-green.
  • Cool colors: Violet, blue-violet, blue, blue-green, green.
• Color Wheel: Circular graphic display of the spectrum, usually in 12 major hues that include primary, secondary and tertiary colors.
• CMYK: Colors used in four color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
• Complementary Hues: Complements are any two hues that are directly opposite each other on a color wheel. When complements are mixed, the resulting color is darker and duller than both of the two parent colors.
• Earth Tone Primary: A triad of earth tones: burnt sienna, yellow ochre, and Payne’s gray (a blue gray mixture of ultramarine blue & black).
• Gamut: A range of hues available to a particular color mode, such as the visible spectrum, RGB (computer screen) and CMYK (four color printing).
• Grayscale: Representation of the value continuum broken down into distinct and evenly progressing achromatic grays.
• High Key: Values in a color image are predominantly light.
• Hue: One of three structural factors of color (along with value and saturation). The name given to a color to describe its location on the color spectrum.
• Keyed: Color groupings are keyed when they are brought together in either hue, value, saturation, or combinations thereof.
• Low Key: Values are “keyed” predominantly dark in an image.
• Luminosity: Light reflected from a surface. The lighter the color the more luminous it is.
• Median Transparency: An illusion of transparency created by overlapping two colors diverse in value. The overlapping area of the two colors appears to be an equal blend of the two adjacent colors.
• Monochromatic: Color schemes that are limited to one hue and variations thereof. There may a broad range of value and saturation levels.
• Muted Colors: Muted colors are softer than prismatic colors, but still retain a sense of hue identity.
• Optical mixing: Small color fragments next to each other are fused into seamless transitions by the eye. Used in tapestry, mosaic, four color printing and Pointillism (see artist Georges Seurat).
• Primary colors: Red, yellow, blue - cannot be obtained by mixing.
• Primary triad: Primary red, yellow and blue triangle on the color wheel. In theory, all colors can be mixed from the three primary colors.
• RGB: Red, green, blue. Colors used in additive or lighting color.
• Saturation: The relative purity of hue in a color. Highly saturated colors are vivid and rich in hue. Low saturation colors are dull and show a weak hue presence. Three levels of saturation: prismatic color, muted color and chromatic gray.
• Secondary (triad) colors: Green, orange and violet. Each of these colors are created by mixing two primary colors.
• Shade: The result of mixing any color with black.
• Simultaneous Contrast: Simultaneous contrast is the optical effect that two neighboring colors have upon each other as their afterimages interact along a shared border. This is most evident when highly saturated exact complements are placed side by side.
• Spectrum: A phenomenon of light that can be seen in a rainbow or through a prism. The spectrum contains the full range of hues present in sunlight.
• Subtractive color: Color from reflected light, rather than direct light. Subtractive color primaries are red, yellow and blue which, produce a dark dull tone when intermixed.
• Tertiary colors: Also called “intermediate colors are yellow-orange, red-orange, blue-green, yellow-green, blue-violet and red-violet. They are produced by mixing one primary color with one secondary color.
• Tint: A tint results when any color is mixed with white.
• Tones: A generic term that refers to any color but a prismatic color. All muted colors and chromatic grays are tones, as are all tints and shades.
• Value: The relative quality of lightness or darkness in a color. It is the only structural factor visible in achromatic images, as in black and white photography. Value means luminosity.

Works Cited

Hornung, David. Color : A Workshop for Artists and Designers. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King, 2012.