Understanding Color Theory: Tone, Value, and Contrast

Color Fundamentals

Tone

Tone defines the very quality that has color.

Value

Value refers to when each color or tone of the color wheel is mixed with bright white or black to darken or lighten it.

Saturation

This concept represents the purity or intensity of a particular color, its brightness or dullness.

Color Mixing

Additive Mixture

It is so named because it is produced by adding the primary colors, resulting in white.

Subtractive Mixture

This is the mix where the primary subject is involved. The sum of the three primaries produces a gray or brown color, almost black.

Complementary colors are those that are opposite on the color wheel. When you mix two complementary colors, you are mixing the three primaries.

Tone Revisited

When using various color tones, it is the same basic color but in different levels of brightness and saturation.

Types of Contrast

Contrast of Light/Dark or Gray Contrast

The extremes are represented by black and white, showing the proportion of each.

Color Contrast

Modulation is caused by the saturation of a pure tone with white, black, gray, or a complementary color.

Contrast Quantity

This relates to the colors we use; it involves using too much of one color and a smaller amount of another.

Simultaneous Contrast

Two items with the same color will exhibit different color contrasts depending on the surrounding colors on your screen.

Contrast Between Complementaries

This involves placing a primary and a secondary color opposite each other on the color triangle. To achieve more harmony, it is advised that one of them is a pure color and the other is modulated with white or black.

Contrast Between Warm and Cold Tones

This is the union of a cold color and a warm color.

Color Harmony and Composition

To harmonize and coordinate the different means that the color values acquire in a composition:

• Dominant: The most neutral and largest color. It serves to emphasize the other colors that make up our layout, especially the opposite color.
• Tonic: The complementary color of the dominant color. It is the most powerful color and value, used as an entertainment or audacity note for any item.
• Mediation: It acts as a conciliator and as a transition between the dominant and tonic colors. It is usually a situation in the color circle close to the dominant toner.