Digital Photography 101: The basics of color theory

Can you imagine a world without color? It's such an intrinsic part of our lives that sometimes we don't even notice it. We only stop to think about color when we encounter a particularly jarring or  particularly pleasing  combination. But for a good photographer, color is a integral part of the constant image processing we do in our heads. We don't just see a composition in terms of lines and shapes; we see the colors in it and the way they work in harmony or opposition. It's well known that color can affect  mood  and, like particular shapes and lines, can be used to evoke feelings of calmness and serenity or of tension and passion. Color can make or break a photograph, so it's a good idea to have some clue what it's all about. In part 1 of this two-part series, we'll explain the basics of color theory. In part 2, we'll go into more detail about how it applies to photography. Hue  is the color part of color. When we say a color is blue, purple, or yellow, we're generally talking about hue. Technically, hue is "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow (the unique hues)." Makes perfect sense, right? If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty technical definition, check out Wikipedia's entry for  hue  -- but for our purposes, it's enough to say that hue is the actual color of the color.  Hue can be adjusted in image editing software such as Photoshop or Gimp. In the images on the left, the top left image is the original photo. In the other three quadrants, we've shifted the hue by varying degrees, moving it more toward green, red, or blue. This can be particularly useful both to adjust for interior lighting or simply for artistic purposes. You're probably familiar from childhood art classes with the traditional primary colors of red, yellow, and blue  -- those reflected light colors are known as painters' primaries. If you've worked with software like Photoshop or played around with your monitor or TV color settings, you might have noticed a different set of primary colors: red, green, and blue, abbreviated RGB. Those are the transmitted light primaries, and they create the colors you see in digital form in your camera or monitor. Printers work with yet another set of primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, abbreviated CMYK. Brightness  (sometimes called lightness, value, or tone) refers to how light or dark a hue is. Again, the  technical definition  gets complex, but the basic concept is simply how much white or black appears in the color. In photography, this is easily adjusted by the exposure; an overexposed image is very light, while an underexposed image is very dark.

Digital Photography 101: The basics of color theory

Can you imagine a world without color? It's such an intrinsic part of our lives that sometimes we don't even notice it. We only stop to think about color when we encounter a particularly jarring or  particularly pleasing  combination. But for a good photographer, color is a integral part of the constant image processing we do in our heads. We don't just see a composition in terms of lines and shapes; we see the colors in it and the way they work in harmony or opposition. It's well known that color can affect  mood  and, like particular shapes and lines, can be used to evoke feelings of calmness and serenity or of tension and passion. Color can make or break a photograph, so it's a good idea to have some clue what it's all about. In part 1 of this two-part series, we'll explain the basics of color theory. In part 2, we'll go into more detail about how it applies to photography. Hue  is the color part of color. When we say a color is blue, purple, or yellow, we're generally talking about hue. Technically, hue is "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow (the unique hues)." Makes perfect sense, right? If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty technical definition, check out Wikipedia's entry for  hue  -- but for our purposes, it's enough to say that hue is the actual color of the color.  Hue can be adjusted in image editing software such as Photoshop or Gimp. In the images on the left, the top left image is the original photo. In the other three quadrants, we've shifted the hue by varying degrees, moving it more toward green, red, or blue. This can be particularly useful both to adjust for interior lighting or simply for artistic purposes. You're probably familiar from childhood art classes with the traditional primary colors of red, yellow, and blue  -- those reflected light colors are known as painters' primaries. If you've worked with software like Photoshop or played around with your monitor or TV color settings, you might have noticed a different set of primary colors: red, green, and blue, abbreviated RGB. Those are the transmitted light primaries, and they create the colors you see in digital form in your camera or monitor. Printers work with yet another set of primary colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, abbreviated CMYK. Brightness  (sometimes called lightness, value, or tone) refers to how light or dark a hue is. Again, the  technical definition  gets complex, but the basic concept is simply how much white or black appears in the color. In photography, this is easily adjusted by the exposure; an overexposed image is very light, while an underexposed image is very dark.

Digital Photography 101: The basics of color theory - Steve's Digicams

Digital Photography 101: The basics of color theory - Steve's Digicams

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