In Color as an Element you met the three properties of color. Each one answers a different question, and each can change while the others stay put. The painter and teacher Albert Munsell built a whole color system on three such properties in 1905; he called them hue, value and chroma.
- Hue: the color family: red, yellow-green, blue-violet.
- Value: how light or dark the color is.
- Saturation (also called intensity or chroma): how pure or how grayed the color is.
Key idea
Hue is the family, value is light or dark, saturation is pure or grayed. They are separate: a color can be light and dull, or dark and strong.
Why it works
Think of a color as an address with three parts. Moving around the wheel changes the hue. Adding white or black moves the value up or down. Adding a gray of the same lightness (or a little of the complement) lowers the saturation without changing the value much.
| Color | Hue | Value | Saturation |
|---|---|---|---|
| fire-engine red | red | middle | high |
| pale pink | red | light | low |
| navy | blue | dark | medium to high |
| olive | yellow-green | middle-dark | low |
| middle gray | none | middle | none |
Worked example: What changed?
A designer swaps a bright sky blue for a soft, grayish blue that looks just as light. Which property changed?
- The family is still blue: the hue did not change.
- It is just as light: the value did not change.
- It went from pure to grayish: the saturation went down.
Answer: Saturation.
Common mistake
Mixing up value and saturation. Pale pink is light (high value) and also low in saturation, because the white that lightens it also dilutes it. Navy is dark, yet it can still be a fairly strong blue. Ask the two questions separately: how light? how pure?