home What is color? Color Wheel Color Schemes
What is Color?

Color is light.

White light from the sun is actually a combination of all colors. When light passes through a wedge-shaped glass, called a prism, the beam of white light is bent and separated into bands of color, called the color spectrum.

Objects absorb some waves of light an reflect others.  A red apple looks red because it reflects red waves and absorbs the rest of the colors. (vantablack)

 
What are the properties of color?
Color has three distinct properties:
HUE
value
Saturation
Hue   back to top
 
Hue is the name of the color itself, such as "blue" or "red".
 
Hues are categorized in:
primary colors
secondary colors
terTiary colors
Value   back to top
Value is the lightness or darkness of a color.
Not all hues in the spectrum have the same value.
Yellow is the lightest value, and purple is the darkest.
The value of a hue (color) can be changed by adding white or black.

Adding white to a hue creates a tint.

Adding black to a hue creates a shade.
Saturation   back to top
 
Saturation refers to the brightness and dullness of color.
A saturated color is extremely bright (the brightest hues are the three primary colors).
An unsaturated color is extremely dull.
When any two colors are mixed together the results are always duller than the "parent" colors.
Saturated Unsaturated Saturated
Bright Dull Bright