Design Vocabulary – Color Terms – Week 2

Arrons third post, this time color terminology, you may have seen some of these terms used in some of your graphic applications so now you can learn alittle bit more about what they mean, feel free to contribute a color term in the comments to add to this post.

Gamut (GAM-ut):

Gamut is the range of available color on an output device. Each device has its own gamut capabilities. If the gamut fall out of that particular devices range, it is shown inaccurately on the display or cannot be printed. We then say a color is “out of gamut”.

Hue:

The basis of a color and usually refers to the name of the color (red, purple, yellow, etc.)

Saturation:

Saturation is the color intensity of an image. A color with high saturation will appear brighter and more vibrant than the same color with low saturation. Colors in gray scale images have no saturation.

Value:

The lightness or darkness of a gray or a color. The darkest level or value of gray is black and the lightest level of gray is white.

Tint:

A variation of a color obtained by adding white

Shade:

A variation of a color obtained by adding black.

Know More?

I know there are many more terms when it comes to color, but I like to keep these short. If you have more please add them in your comments.

Author of this post: Arron Lock

Self proclaimed "Rock Star Designer" and "Photoshop Ninja", you can also follow me on twitter See all posts by: Arron Lock

12 Comments (Leave a Comment)

Carryimprovement

December 4, 2009

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shane

October 6, 2009

nice post, i’m sure this will be very useful for beginners.
Thanks for sharing.
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SJL Web Design

@sjlwebdesign July 31, 2009

Great article Max, would be very useful for beginners, I will share it with some friends.
Reply
David

October 21, 2008

Chromaticity: Think about a color’s “purity” when describing its “chromaticity” or “CHROMA”. This property of color tells us how pure a hue is. That means there is no white, black, or gray present in a color that has high chroma. These colors will appear very vivid and well, … pure. This concept is related to and often confused with saturation. You might also think of this describing how much other color has been added in to muddy the original.

Also you might want to describe the difference between translusive and reflective light and how it affects your thinking of a color wheel.
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Will

October 21, 2008

I have always used the word “tone” in place of “shade”, is it the same?
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Justin Leaf-Wright

October 21, 2008

Toasted pixel…you beating me to the comments today I see.

Awesome right up bro…

Toasted you never answered my forum post.
Reply
toastedpixel.org

October 21, 2008

Love the article
Reply
Dainis Graveris

October 20, 2008

Nice to see continuing series – love those short and useful articles. Didn’t know really many of them..:)

Dainis Graveris´s lastest blog post..Learn How To Master Your Typing Skills: 9 Resources
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Arron Lock

October 20, 2008

@ Lilian
You’re right, I could go on and on with color terms. I really try to keep these lists short (5-6 terms) for the sake of easy reading. If the general consensus wants me to add more I will be happy to. Thanks for reading!

@Angie
Thank you very much! I do plan to add these terms in a glossary on my site as the weeks go by. I don’t want to draw attention away from the posts on here.

Arron Lock´s lastest blog post..New Business Cards
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Angie Bowen

October 20, 2008

This is turning out to be a very nice series. You should put up a permanent glossary of terms when the series is over.

Angie Bowen´s lastest blog post..Freebies – Circular Fractal Photoshop Brush Pack 2
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Lilian

October 20, 2008

I’d add some definitions on complimentary colours, analogous colours, primary, secondary, tertiary… basic colour wheel definitions essentially, but words no visual communicator should live without knowing! If anyone wants to know more about colour terminology – and colour in general – I’d recommend Betty Edwards ‘Color’.

Lilian´s lastest blog post..If I Ran deviantArt
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