Color Theory (Understanding Colors)

Secondary colors of artist's media

A group of colors, each resulting from the mixture of two subtractive primaries: orange (red and yellow), green (blue and yellow), violet (blue and red)

Achromatic

Having no discernible hue or color

Acuity

sharpness of vision

Additive mixture

Color seen as a result of light alone

Additive primaries

The three wavelengths of light that must be present to yield white light: red, green, and blue

Admixture

An artist's technique in which a single color is mixed into all ( or most) colors in a composition

aerial perspective

the haziness that surrounds objects that are farther away from the viewer, causing the distance to be perceived as greater

Afterimage

A "ghost" image that follows stimulation of the eye by a single color when its complement is not present in the of vision.

Aniline dyes

A family of alcohol- and tar-based discovered in the 1830's; capable of producing brilliant colors but not as colorfast as the as dyes that succeeded them.

Analogous colors

Colors adjacent on a color spectrum, sometimes defined as hues limited to the range between a primary and secondary. A group of colors including any two primaries but never the third.

Artist's media

A family of subtractive media that selectively absorb and reflect light. Artists' media are composed of a liquid, paste, viscous, solid, or other base into which pigments or dyes have been introduced to form a transferable colorant, such as paint, dye, crayon, or chalk.

Artist's primaries

The simplest colors of artist's subtractive media, from which all other colors are derived: red, yellow, and blue. Colors that cannot be further reduced into component parts.

Artist's spectrum

The full range of visible hues as organized by Goethe: reds, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet; expandable to include any and all hues in between them. Also called the color circle or color wheel.

ASTM

The American Society for Testing and Materials, now _ International, which provides standards for more than 130 industries, including standards for paints, dyes, and other colorants.

Atmospheric perspective

A pictorial depth give in which drawn objects appear farther away because they are illustrated as more muted and blue than nearer ones.

Azo dyes

A family of petroleum-based dyes developed in the latter nineteenth century, with greater color fastness than the aniline dyes that preceded them.

Base

A liquid, paste, viscous, wax, chalk, or other substance into which pigments, dyes, or other colorants may be introduced to create a medium suchas oil paint, textile dye, crayon; also at times called a binder.

Beauty

The quality of an object or the experience that gives pleasure to one or more of the senses.

Bezold effect

An effect in which all colors in a composition appear lighter by the addition of light outline, or darker by the addition of dark outline; also an effect in which a colored ground appears lighter because of linear design in light line or darker because of a linear design in dark line. Bezold effect is somethics too broadly stated as "an effect that takes place when changing one color composition appears to make all of the colors change." Also called assimilation effect and spreading effect.

Binary code colors

A system for specifying colors for Web graphics by their relative proportions o red, green, and blue light emission.

Binder

a substance that makes pigments adhere to a surface

Bit

The smallest piece of digitally coded information.

Bitmap

An image on the monitor made up of pixels that correspond exactly to the information in computer memory.

Brilliance

The combined qualities of high light-reflectance and strong holes typically found in saturated colors and strong tints.

Broken color

A random distribution of patches or flecks of colors within a single area or field of vision

Calibration

The process of adjusting a monitor so that specific combinations of red, green, and blue signals produce specific colors on the screen.

Carried colors

Colors in an image or design that are laid on the background.

Chroma

A synonym of hue and color; the name of a color. Also, a term used to describe the relative presence of hue in a sample. A did color has high chroma; a muted color has lower chroma.

Chromatic

Having hue or color.

Chromatic adaptation

Exposure to light in a specific part of the visible spectrum. This adaptation can cause a decrease in sensitivity to light from the area of the spectrum that was presented during adaptation.

Chromotherapy

The use of color for healing.

CIE

The Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage; an organization that attempts to standardize color notation with regard to the colors of light.

CMYK display mode

A mode of screen color display that imitates the results of mixing process colors. Each color in display mode represents a color of process ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, black)

Color

A category of visual experience including hue, value, and saturation. Also a synonym for hue and chroma, the name of a color.

Colorant

A substance that reacts with light by absorbing some wavelengths and reflecting others, giving an object or surface its hue.

Color chord

A group of theoretically harmonious hues, expressed geometrically as rectangles or triangles overlaid on the artist's spectrum.

Color coding

The use of color to differentiate between similar objects or ideas.

Color constancy

The perception that the colors of familiar objects remain the same no matter what the general lighting.

Color cycle

A period of time or stage n consumer preference for certain palettes; the prevalence of certain colors in the context of a particular time.

Color display mode

The way in which a user mixes colors on a monitor screen.

Color forecasting

A service that provides manufactures and vendors with information and guidance on upcoming consumer interest in certain colors and palettes.

Color Gamut

The range of colors that is defined by the color profile; when working within a given color profile, color choices are selected from the gamut

Colorimeter

A device that measures the red, green, and blue wavelengths of emitted light; used to calibrate computers.

Color management

The process of synchronizing colors between two or more devices or media.

Color memory

The ability to retain color in memory; also the association of colors with images or events. Some experiments have indicated that the presence of color adds additional information to memory so that an image seen in color is more easily recalled than the same image seen without color.

Color notation

A system of letters and numbers used to organize colors.

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

A rating scale meant to assess the ability of a lamp to render the colors of objects. Lamps are rated abased on the degree of color shift that occurs when an object placed under the test lamp is compared to the same object under a reference standard lamp.

Color solid

A representation of colors organized by hue, values and chroma (saturation) as a three-dimensional form.

Color temperature

In lighting, the measurable temperature in degrees Kelvin of any given source. In color theory and descriptions the relative warmth cred-yellow-orange cast) or coolness (blue or green cast) of a color.

Colorway

A specific combination of colors for a product such as a textile or wall covering that is available in more than one combination of colors; as "this wallpaper is available in a red colorway, a green colorway, and a gray colorway."

Color wheel

A synonym for spectrum. Also, a term sometimes used to mean a multi-color spinning top devised by nineteenth century scientist James Maxwell to demonstrate responses of the human eye to colors in motion.

Complementary colors

Colors that lie directly opposite one other on the artist's spectrum. Each pair of complements includes the three primary colors red, yellow, and blue) in some proportion or mixture.

Complementary contrast

An effect of intensified hue difference that takes place when colors used together contain even a partial complementary relationship.

Composition

A complete entity, something meant to be sensed as a whole

Cones

Light-sensitive receptor cells in the retina that respond to color and fine detail.

Contrast reversal

A variation of afterimage in which the "ghost" image is seen as a negative of the original image and in complementary color.

Design

Used as a noun, art fused with function in an object that will be produced by others; as a verb, the process of originating applied art.

Design concept

A broad solution to a design problem without resolution of details.

Design process

Procedure for solving design problems.

Dilution

Changing a pure or saturated hue by lightening, darkening, or muting by the addition of black, white, gray or its complement.

Display mode

The way in which a user mixes the colors of a monitor screen display.

Dithering

A grainy or broken area of color caused by the insertion by the software of small areas op similar colors within an image to approximate a color that does not exist in the gamut.

Divisionism

also known as Pointilism; a distinctive style of painting focusing on the science of color developed by George Seurat

Document color

Color or colors in a reproduction textile, wallpaper, paint, or other protect that accurately reproduce the color or colors of that product as they were when originally produced.

Dye (dyestuff)

A colorant that is fully dissolved in a vehicle, such as water or other liquid; a colorant in solution. Traditional dyes in general were organic but most modern dyes are synthetic (man-made).

Equilibrium

An involuntary, physiological state of rest that the eye seeks at all times. Equilibrium occurs when all three (additive or subtractive) primary colors are present within the field of vision.

Even intervals

Visually equidistant steps between three or more colors.

Field

In carpet and flag design, the term for the background upon which colors are laid .

Filter

A material that transmits some wavelengths of light and absorbs others.

Fluting

A three-dimensional illusion in which a series of vertical strips of uniform which appear to have concavity, like the channels of a Doric column.

Fugitive

Easy fading or deteriorating color.

Full color

Complete range of color made by overprinting transparent yellow, magenta, cyan, and black.

Gamut

The full range of color available in software and seen as the light display a color monitor. Also used, less frequently, to characterize the range of colors in subtractive media.

Glitter

Sparkle; sharp light reflectiveness with an impression of movement.

Gloss

A highly polished, light- reflectiveness surface quality.

Gradient

A series of progressive intervals of colors so close that individual steps cannot be distinguished.

Gray scale

A value series made up of intervals of gray, which may or may not extend to black and white.

Ground

The background against which colors, forms, or shapes are laid.

Harmony

In color, the pleasing joint effect of two w more colors used together in a single composition.

Hexadecimal colors

Colors within a system of specifying colors for Web graphics based on a 16-symbol code consisting of numbers 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. Each color is specified by two symbols as a percentage of red, green, and blue.

HSB display mode

hue, saturation, and brightness used to represent the mixing of light and color on a monitor in the context of digital design

HTML

Hypertext markup language; the principal programming language of the Internet and the language in which the Web pages are designed.

Hue

The name of the color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet. Synonyms are chroma or color.

Hue intensity

The saturation or purity ofa color; its did versus dull quality.

Illuminant mode of vision

The presence of a viewer and light source only.

Image

A representation or depiction of a person, animal, or object; also a form or shape seen against a ground. These can vary from photographic likenesses to nonrepresentational forms that do not portray objects or natural appearances.

Incandescent light

Light that results a byproduct of burning.

Incident beam

The beam of light leaving a light source.

Indirect Color

A secondary reflection of color that occurs when light from a general light source reaches a highly reflective color on a broad plane. The wavelength of color reflecting off the colored plane washes any surface that is positioned to receive it (that is, positioned at an angle equal to that of the incident beam leaving the general light source.

Intensity

Sometimes used as a synonym for brilliance, or the strength of a hue.

Intermediate Color

A color on the spectrum between a primary and a secondary.

Interval

A visual step between color samples.

Iridescence

an attribute of surfaces on which the hue changes as the observer's angle of view changes

Lamp

A device that emits light, or visible energy. The correct term for a light bulb.

Light

Visible energy.

Light intensity

The light -reflecting quality of a color

Luminosity

Literally, light emitted without heat. Used to describe the light-reflecting quality of a color. Luminous colors reflect light, non-luminous colors absorb light.

Luster

Sheen, softened or diffused light reflectiveness on a surface.

Matte

A smooth, dull, visually flat quality of surface.

Maximum chroma

The strongest possible manifestation of a hue.