All About The Advanced Color Theory

By Patty Goff


If one is in the field of arts, then one of the most important lessons that he will be learning would be the color theory. This is extremely important because it would teach the student how to mix colors until he is able to get the end result that he would want. If one is already an experienced artist, he will be learning the advanced color theory.

Just to give an idea for those who do not know, the basics would deal with the Color wheel that was first coined by Sir Isaac Newton. Basically, the wheel shows the different kinds of mixes of shades that would stem out from mixing the primary colors. The primary colors are red, yellow and blue and every other color is just a mix of these three.

After one has already finished with the basics, one will now learn about the details and the measurements of colors. Basically, he will be learning about the different types of shades as well as how to measure them. Now there are actually five basic concepts that he would be learning about namely the hue, chroma, saturation, value, and the luminance.

Now on the top of the list of concepts to learn, there would be the hue. The the three primary colors that were mentioned above can be distinguished by measurement of hue. The hue is actually just the amount of light that is emitted from colors and it measures the strength of these colors.

The second concept that would be taught to the students would be the chroma which measures how colorful a pigment is. Now this is strongly related to the hue because it actually depends on how strong the hue is. Now if one would say that the hue is weak in a particular color, then it is known to be more colorful and vice versa.

The next thing that will be taught would be the saturation or in simple terms, the intensity. Now intensity simply means the amount of brightness that a certain shade produces and how strong it is to the eyes. Some colors that would have high saturation would be red, yellow, and other secondary colors that would contain these primary ones.

After that, one will then be taught about value. Now the value actually measures brightness as a whole. If one pigment is bright, then it possesses a high value level as compared to one that is dark.

The final concept that would be taught is the concept of luminance. Now the measurement of luminance is actually connected to the value and the saturation except the luminance deals a lot with mathematical formulas with its measurements. The luminance is measured in intensity per unit and can be calculated by getting the average of a few colors.

So for those who are learning about the basics of color, this is what they will learn when going to a higher level. The first step would be learning about primary colors and mixing them. The advanced lessons will concentrate on the details of colors and the math.




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