List of colors by shade

Last updated February 19, 2024

Colors with shades and tints of that hue

Black

Black is the darkest shade, and the result of the absence or complete absorption of light. Like white and gray, it is an achromatic color, literally a color without hue.

Brown colors are dark or muted shades of reds, oranges, and yellows on the RGB and CMYK color schemes. In practice, browns are created by mixing two complementary colors from the RYB color scheme (combining all three primary colors). In theory, such combinations should produce black, but produce brown because most commercially available blue pigments tend to be comparatively weaker; ^{[ citation needed ]} the stronger red and yellow colors prevail, thus creating the following tones. The color brown can also be made if multiple paint colors are added to each other.

Cyan

Cyan is any of the colors in the blue-green range of the visible spectrum, i.e., between approximately 490 and 520 nm. It is considered one of the main subtractive primary colors. Cyan is sometimes considered green or blue because of the way it appears.

Gray

Achromatic grays are colors between black and white with no hue. Chromatic grays are achromatic grays mixed with warm hues such as yellow (warm grays) or cool hues such as azure (cool grays). This gray color template includes both achromatic and chromatic grays.

Green

Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colors.

Magenta

Magenta is variously defined as a purplish-red, reddish-purple, or a mauvish–crimson color. On color wheels of the RGB and CMY color models, it is located midway between red and blue, opposite green. Complements of magenta are evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 500–530 nm. It is considered one of the subtractive primary colors.

Orange

Orange is the color in the visible spectrum between red and yellow with a wavelength around 585 – 620 nm. In the HSV color space, it has a hue of around 30°.

Pink

Pink is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light, consisting predominantly of a combination of both the longest and shortest wavelengths discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength ranges of roughly 625–750 nm and 380-490 nm.

Purple and Violet

Violet refers to any colour perceptually evoked by light with a predominant wavelength of roughly 380–450 nm. Tones of violet tending towards the blue are called indigo. Purple colors are colors that are various blends of violet or blue light with red light.

Red

Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light, consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 625–750 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colors.

White

White is the lightest shade and a balanced combination of all the colors of the visible light spectrum, or of a pair of complementary colors, or of three or more colors, such as additive primary colors. It is a neutral or achromatic (without color) color, like black and gray.

Yellow

Yellow is the color of light with wavelengths predominantly in the range of roughly 570–580 nm. In the HSV color space, it has a hue of around 60°. It is considered one of the subtractive primary colors.

Related Research Articles

Color or colour is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorption, reflection, emission spectra and interference. For most humans, colors are perceived in the visible light spectrum with three types of cone cells (trichromacy). Other animals may have a different number of cone cell types or have eyes sensitive to different wavelength, such as bees that can distinguish ultraviolet, and thus have a different color sensitivity range. Animal perception of color originates from different light wavelength or spectral sensitivity in cone cell types, which is then processed by the brain.

Cyan is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 490 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue.

The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.

The CMYK color model is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation CMYK refers to the four ink plates used: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black).

A set of primary colors or primary colours consists of colorants or colored lights that can be mixed in varying amounts to produce a gamut of colors. This is the essential method used to create the perception of a broad range of colors in, e.g., electronic displays, color printing, and paintings. Perceptions associated with a given combination of primary colors can be predicted by an appropriate mixing model that reflects the physics of how light interacts with physical media, and ultimately the retina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magenta</span> Color

Magenta is a purplish-red color. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between red and blue. It is one of the four colors of ink used in color printing by an inkjet printer, along with yellow, cyan, and black to make all the other colors. The tone of magenta used in printing, printer's magenta, is redder than the magenta of the RGB (additive) model, the former being closer to rose.

The Natural Color System (NCS) is a proprietary perceptual color model. It is based on the color opponency hypothesis of color vision, first proposed by German physiologist Ewald Hering. The current version of the NCS was developed by the Swedish Colour Centre Foundation, from 1964 onwards. The research team consisted of Anders Hård, Lars Sivik and Gunnar Tonnquist, who in 1997 received the AIC Judd award for their work. The system is based entirely on the phenomenology of human perception and not on color mixing. It is illustrated by a color atlas, marketed by NCS Colour AB in Stockholm.

Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two colors. Complementary colors may also be called "opposite colors".

In color reproduction and colorimetry, a gamut, or color gamut, is a convex set containing the colors that can be accurately represented, i.e. reproduced by an output device or measured by an input device. Devices with a larger gamut can represent more colors. Similarly, gamut may also refer to the colors within a defined color space, which is not linked to a specific device. A trichromatic gamut is often visualized as a color triangle. A less common usage defines gamut as the subset of colors contained within an image, scene or video.

Color theory, or more specifically traditional color theory, is the historical body of knowledge describing the behavior of colors, namely in color mixing, color contrast effects, color harmony, color schemes and color symbolism. Modern color theory is generally referred to as Color science. While there is no clear distinction in scope, traditional color theory tends to be more subjective and have artistic applications, while color science tends to be more objective and have functional applications, such as in chemistry, astronomy or color reproduction. Color theory dates back at least as far as Aristotle's treatise On Colors. A formalization of "color theory" began in the 18th century, initially within a partisan controversy over Isaac Newton's theory of color and the nature of primary colors. By the end of the 19th century, a schism had formed between traditional color theory and color science.

This is an index of color topic-related articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subtractive color</span> Light passing through successive filters

Subtractive color or subtractive color mixing predicts the spectral power distribution of light after it passes through successive layers of partially absorbing media. This idealized model is the essential principle of how dyes and pigments are used in color printing and photography, where the perception of color is elicited after white light passes through microscopic "stacks" of partially absorbing media allowing some wavelengths of light to reach the eye and not others, and also in painting, whether the colors are mixed or applied in successive layers.

A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle, which shows the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spectral color</span> Color evoked by a single wavelength of light in the visible spectrum

A spectral color is a color that is evoked by monochromatic light, i.e. either a spectral line with a single wavelength or frequency of light in the visible spectrum, or a relatively narrow spectral band. Every wave of visible light is perceived as a spectral color; when viewed as a continuous spectrum, these colors are seen as the familiar rainbow. Non-spectral colors are evoked by a combination of spectral colors.

Color digital images are made of pixels, and pixels are made of combinations of primary colors represented by a series of code. A channel in this context is the grayscale image of the same size as a color image, made of just one of these primary colors. For instance, an image from a standard digital camera will have a red, green and blue channel. A grayscale image has just one channel.

A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components. When this model is associated with a precise description of how the components are to be interpreted, taking account of visual perception, the resulting set of colors is called "color space."

There are three types of color mixing models, depending on the relative brightness of the resultant mixture: additive, subtractive, and average. In these models, mixing black and white will yield white, black and gray, respectively. Physical mixing processes, e.g. mixing light beams or oil paints, will follow one or a hybrid of these 3 models. Each mixing model is associated with several color models, depending on the approximate primary colors used. The most common color models are optimized to human trichromatic color vision, therefore comprising three primary colors.

A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of color – whether such representation entails an analog or a digital representation. A color space may be arbitrary, i.e. with physically realized colors assigned to a set of physical color swatches with corresponding assigned color names, or structured with mathematical rigor. A "color space" is a useful conceptual tool for understanding the color capabilities of a particular device or digital file. When trying to reproduce color on another device, color spaces can show whether shadow/highlight detail and color saturation can be retained, and by how much either will be compromised.

Violet is a color term derived from the flower of the same name. There are numerous variations of the color violet, a sampling of which are shown below.

This article provides introductory information about the RGB, HSV, and HSL color models from a computer graphics perspective. An introduction to colors is also provided to support the main discussion.

References

Frery, A. C.; Melo, C. A. S.; Fernandes, R. C. (13 October 2000). "Web-based Interactive Dynamics for Color Models Learning". Color Research and Application. 25 (6): 435–441. doi:10.1002/1520-6378(200012)25:6<435::AID-COL8>3.0.CO;2-J. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 2009-03-15.

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