Properties of color

The millions of other colors in the spectrum are variations from the 12 basic hues of the color wheel. These are achieved by adding another color to the hue, or by adjusting light or saturation.

Hue: color with no black, white or grey added
Tint: hue + white
Shade: hue + black
Tone: hue + grey or hue + varying degrees of its complementary color
Value: how light or dark a color appears
Intensity: how bright or dull a color appears, also called saturation
and/or chromaticity. Greys are achromatic, meaning no hue/color and are therefore low in intensity. The hue yellow would be completely saturated, high in chromaticity and extremely intense.

 

Hue #0000FF

 Tint #99CCFF

 Tone #333399

 Shade #000033
 

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Harlen Makemson © 1999 All Rights Reserved. Designed for the students of JOMC 50 Electronic Information Sources in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All copyrighted material used in this site is intended as fair use for educational purposes only.