Color Terminology for January 23

• Hue – The name given to a color to describe its location on the color spectrum based upon its wavelength.
• Value – Th relative quality of lightness or darkness in a color.  The only structural aspect of color visible in a black and white photograph.
• Saturation – The relative purity of hue present in a color.  A highly saturated color vividly shows a strong presence of hue; conversely, low saturation refers to a weak hue presence.
• Luminosity – The amount of light reflected form the surface of a color.  Value is a measure of luminosity.
• Chromatic Gray – Subtle colors that result from considerably lowering the saturation level of prismatic colors.  Chromatic grays weakly exhibit the distinguishing quality of the hue family to which they belong.
• Achromatic Gray – Grays that are created by mixing black and white.  Achromatic grays have no evident coloration when seen against a white background.  Black and white are also achromatic.
• Muted Color – Rich but softened colors that reside on our color wheel between prismatic color and chromatic gray.
• Monochromatic – A color scheme based on one hue.  Monochromatic schemes can include a range of values and saturation levels and may also stretch the definition of one hue to include several different versions of it.
• Analogous Hues – Hues that lie adjacent to each other on the color wheel.
• Complementary Hues – Hues that lie directly opposite each other on the color  wheel.
• Grayscale – A graduated representation of the value continuum broken down into a finite number of steps, usually teen, eleven, or twelve achromatic grays.
• Saturation Continuum – A graphic representation of the infinite gradations of saturation that exist between any two complementary colors.