Colour theory is not just a single definition. It encompasses multiple definations, concepts and design applications.
Here we will discuss some basic category of colour theory:
Colour wheel
Colour theory terms
Colour temperature
Colour scheme
Colour context
COLOUR WHEEL:
The first colour wheel was established by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. He understood colours as human perceptions. Since then, scientists and artists have studied and designed numerous variations of this concept. Additive colours and subtractive colours have there different colour wheels. Additive colour wheel has primary colours red, green and blue. Subtractive colour wheel has primary colours red, yellow and blue. As because all natural colours are subtractive colours that's why artists work with subtractive colour wheel, which we will discus here.
Primary colours:
Red, Yellow and Blue are primary colours. These three colours can not be created by mixing any other colour pigments.
Secondary colours:
Green, orange and violet are secondary colours. These colours are formed by mixing two primary colours at same ratio.
Tertiary colours:
Red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green and yellow-orange are tertiary colours. These are the colours formed by mixing a primary and a secondary colour at same ratio. That's why these colours have two word name.
COLOUR THEORY TERMS:
Hue:
Hue is what colour it is or the name of the colour.
Chroma:
Chroma is the intensity or purity of hue (any colour). It is the "colorfulness of an area judged as a proportion of the brightness of a similarly illuminated area that appears white or highly transmitting".
Saturation:
Saturation is also the intensity or purity of hue but in a predetermined way. It is the "colorfulness of an area judged in proportion to its brightness".
Vibrance:
Normally, saturation and vibrance both work to increase or decrease the intensity of colours in an image, but whereas saturation simply increases the intensity of all colors simultaneously, vibrance increases the intensity of muted colors more.
Value:
Value is the degree of lightness or darkness of a colour (hue).
Shade:
Shade is range of colours produced by adding Black.
Tint:
Tint is range of colours produced by adding White.
Tone:
Tone is range of colours produced by adding Gray or by both tinting and shading.
Luminance:
Luminance is the brightness or darkness of a colour.
Those are all different units to identify any colour or colour shade.
Those are used like,
hue-saturation-luminance, hue-chroma-value etc.
COLOUR TEMPERATURE:
Colours are categorized into two colour temperatures, worm colour and cool colour. Worm colours are associated with daylight or sunset, and the cool colours are associated with a gray or overcast day. Worm colours are the hues from red-violet through yellow to yellow-green including browns and tans. Cool colours are the hues from blue-green through blue-violet to violet including most of the grays.
COLOUR SCHEME:
In colour theory, a colour scheme is the choice of colours used in design for a range of media.
Monochromatic colour scheme:
Using one hue and adding white, black or gray to create tints, shades and tones.
Complimentary colour scheme:
Colours sitting across each other on the colour wheel.
Analogous colour scheme:
2 to 4 colours next to each other on the colour wheel.
Triadic colour scheme:
3 colours that are evenly spread around the colour wheel.
Split-complimentary colour scheme:
A base colour and the two colours adjacent to it's complimentary colour.
Tetradic (rectangular) colour scheme:
4 colours arranged into two complimentary pairs.
Square colour scheme:
4 complimentary colours evenly spread around the colour wheel.
COLOUR CONTEXT:
Colour context is, how colour behaves in relation to other colours and shapes.
Example 1
In this "Example 1" image, the contrast of different coloured backgrounds for the same red square are shown. Red appears more brilliant against a black background and little bit less brilliant against a white background compared to other two. Also, the red square against black looks tiny bit bigger than others.
Example 2
In this image the small violet rectangle on the left appears to be more reddish compared to the right one. (If you can not see the difference, may be your computer has no sufficient colour stability and gamma correction.)
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