Color tone or color tone. Color in composition

The tone is determined by the nature of the distribution of radiation in the spectrum of visible light, and mainly by the position of the peak of the radiation, and not by its intensity and the nature of the distribution of radiation in other regions of the spectrum. It is the tone that determines the name of the color, for example “red”, “blue”, “green”.

In everyday life, this term can also refer to other color characteristics of an object. For example, “light tone” or “dark tone”.

Hue

Other translations: color, paint, tint, tone.

This is the word we mean when we ask the question “What color is this?” We are interested in a color property called “Hue”. For example, when we talk about the colors red, yellow, green, and blue, we mean "hue". Different tones are created by light of different wavelengths. So this aspect of color is usually quite easy to recognize.

Contrast of tones - clearly different tones.

Tone contrast - different shades, same tone (blue).

The term "hue" describes the main characteristic of color that distinguishes red from yellow and blue. Color largely depends on the wavelength of light emitted or reflected by an object. For example, the range of visible light is between infrared (wavelength ~700nm) and ultraviolet (wavelength ~400nm).

The diagram shows the color spectrum that represents these boundaries of visible light, as well as two color groups (red and blue) called "tone families." Any color taken from the spectrum can be mixed with white, black and gray to obtain the colors of the corresponding tone family. Please note that within a tone family there are colors with different brightness, chromaticity and saturation.

Chromaticity (Chorma)

We talk about chromaticity when we talk about the “purity” of color. This property of a color tells us how pure it is. This means that if a color contains no admixtures of white, black or gray, the color has high purity. These colors look vibrant and clean.

The concept of “chromaticity” is associated with saturation. And it is often confused with saturation. However, we will continue to use these terms separately, because in our opinion they refer to different situations, as will be discussed below.

High chromaticity - very shining, vibrant colors.

Low chromaticity - achromatic, colorless colors.

Chromaticity is the same - average level. The same liveliness of colors despite the different tone; the purity is less than that of the samples above.

Highly chromatic colors contain a maximum of actual color with minimal or no admixtures of white, black or gray. In other words, the degree of absence of impurities of other colors in a particular color characterizes its chromaticity.

Chromaticity, often called “hue,” is the amount of hue in a color. A color without color (hue) is achromatic or monochromatic, and is visible as gray. For most colors, as brightness increases, so does chromaticity, except for very light colors.

Saturation

Related to chromaticity, saturation tells us how a color looks under different lighting conditions. For example, a room painted one color will look different at night than during the day. During the day, although the color will remain unchanged, its saturation will change. Saturation has nothing to do with the words “dark” and “light”. Instead, use the words "pale", "weak" and "pure", "strong".

The saturation is the same - the same intensity, different tones.

Saturation contrast - different levels of filling, the tone is the same.

Saturation, also called “color intensity,” describes the strength of a color relative to its brightness (value) or lightness (luminance/lightness). In other words, color saturation indicates its difference from gray at a certain brightness of light. For example, colors close to gray are desaturated compared to lighter colors.

In color, the property of “lively” or “full” is nothing more than the absence of an admixture of gray or its shades. It is important to note that saturation is measured along lines of equal brightness.

Saturation: 128

Brightness (Value/Brightness)

When we say a color is “dark” or “light,” we mean its brightness. This property tells us how light or dark the light is, in the sense of how close to white it is. For example, canary yellow is considered lighter than navy blue, which in turn is itself lighter than black. Thus, the value of canary yellow is higher than navy blue and black.

Low brightness, constant - same brightness level.

Brightness contrast - gray = achromatic.

Brightness contrast is a complete difference in brightness.

Brightness (the term used is "value" or "brightness") depends on the amount of light emitted by a color. The easiest way to remember this concept is to imagine a gray scale, with a change from black to white, containing all possible variations of monochromatic gray. The more light there is in a color, the brighter it is. Thus, magenta is less bright than sky blue because it emits less light.

This gray scale can be equated to the color scale using the same equation used in television (Gray Luminance = 0.30 Red + 0.59 Green + 0.11 Blue):

An interactive demo illustrates the change in brightness in a 2D diagram:

Brightness/Value: 128

Luminance/Lightness

Although the word “brightness” is often used instead, we prefer to use the word “lightness” (or “luminosity”). The concept of "lightness of color" is associated with many of the same variables as brightness in the sense of "value". But in this case, a different mathematical formula is used. In short, remember the color wheel. In it, the colors are arranged in a circle with the same lightness. Adding white increases lightness, adding black decreases it.

This color measurement is related to brightness (value), but differs in its mathematical definition. Lightness of color measures the intensity of light per unit area of its source. It is calculated by calculating the average in a group of achromatic colors.

Suffice it to say that lightness increases from very dark to very light (radiant) and can be represented using a color wheel, which shows all colors (hue) with the same lightness. If we add a little light to the color wheel, we increase the intensity of the light and thus increase the lightness of the colors. The opposite will happen if we reduce the light. Compare what the lightness planes look like with the luminance planes (above).

Lightness/Luminance: 128

Tint, tone, and shade

These terms are often misused, but they describe a fairly simple concept in color. The main thing to remember is how different the color is from its initial hue. When white is added to a color, this lighter variety of color is called a “tint.” When a color is made darker by adding black, the resulting color is called a “shade.” If you add gray, each gradation gives you a different tone.

Shades (add white to pure color).

Shadows (add black to pure color).

Tonalities (add gray to pure color).

Complementary Colors

When two or more colors “go together,” they are called complementary colors. This sign is absolutely subjective, and we are ready to discuss it and listen to other opinions. A more precise definition would be “if two colors, when mixed together, produce a neutral gray (paint/pigment) or white (light) color, they are called complementary.”

Primary Colors

The definition of primary colors depends on how we intend to reproduce the color. The colors visible when sunlight is split by a prism are sometimes called spectral colors. These are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. This combination of KOZHZGSF is often reduced to three colors: red, green and blue-violet, which are the primary colors of the additive color system (light). The primary colors of the subtractive color system (paint, pigment) are cyan, magenta and yellow. Remember, the combination “red, yellow, blue” is not a combination of primary colors!

Color systems RGB, CMYK, HSL

In different cases, different color systems are used depending on how color is reproduced. If we use light sources, the dominant system is RGB (from “red/green/blue” - “red/green/blue”).

For colors that are obtained by mixing paints, pigments or inks on fabric, paper, linen or other material, the CMY system (from “cyan/magenta/yellow”) is used as a color model. Due to the fact that pure pigments are very expensive, to obtain black color, not an equal mixture of CMY is used, but simply black paint.

Another popular color system is HSL (from hue/saturation/lightness). This system has several options, where instead of saturation, chroma, lightness (luminance) along with brightness (value) (HSV/HLV) are used. It is this system that corresponds to how the human eye sees color.

Color tone

What is denoted by the word “color” in the professional vocabulary of artists is defined in scientific color science by the term “color tone.”

Color tone is the quality of chromatic color, when determining which color is called red, yellow, blue, green; the characteristic of a color being different from other colors in the spectrum. In our minds, color tone is associated with the color of familiar objects. Many color names come from objects with a characteristic color: sand, emerald, chocolate, cherry, which indicates the inextricable connection of color with the objective world. The terms “lightness” and “color tone” are closely related in content to the concepts of “light” and “color”. In nature, color tone and lightness appear inseparably. And their division is one of the conventions of fine art, depending on the artist’s creative attitude, the type of his vision, the material and technique he uses. However, an absolute distinction cannot be made theoretically between the concepts of “lightness” and “color tone”. If, for example, we take blue paint, diluted to varying degrees with white, then we have lightness gradations or changes in its lightness. The same will happen with any other paint, but if we take one of the light gradations of blue and one of the light gradations of red. Then we will have to have pink and blue paints. “Painting is the transmission of tone (i.e., aperture of color), plus color, of visible material,” said N. P. Krymov. This once again demonstrates that every colorful spot contains a color characterized by three interconnected indicators - “lightness”, “hue”, “saturation”. And when a paint changes in lightness, some paints have less, while others have a greater change in color tone.

Saturation

Saturation - color strength - the degree of difference between a chromatic color and a gray color of equal lightness; the degree of approximation to a pure spectral color or the percentage of color in a given hue. The closer a color approaches the spectral color, the stronger its difference from gray, the more saturated it is. Pink, light yellow, light blue or dark brown are low saturated colors. In practice, low-saturated colors are obtained by adding white or black paint to the chromatic color. An admixture of white makes the color lighter, and black paint makes it darker. Darkening or lightening a color always reduces its saturation. Saturation also depends on the color tone. Yellow is always more saturated than red, red is always more saturated than blue.

In color science, it is often not the saturation that is perceived visually that is measured, but the so-called purity, or colorimetric color saturation, which is determined by the ratio of the brightness of the spectral component to the overall brightness of the color. Color purity is a relative value and is usually expressed as a percentage. The purity of spectral colors is taken as one, or 100 percent, and the purity of achromatic colors is zero. Knowing hue, lightness, and color saturation, you can quantitatively measure any color. The slightest change in one of the three values that determine color entails a change in color. The method of determining color using the three listed characteristics, convenient because color can be determined quantitatively, is successfully used in various fields of science and technology, including printing, textile production, color television, etc., where special instruments are used to measure color - spectrophotometers and colorimeters of various systems. All methods for determining color in colorimetry are based on comparing colors that lie in the same plane and are under the same lighting conditions. In painting, when working from life, the artist must analyze and compare the colors inherent in volumetric objects or objects that are complex in shape, which, as a rule, are surrounded by a color environment or objects of a different color and which are located on several, sometimes quite distant from each other, plans and , therefore, in different lighting conditions.

Color circle

The colors of the spectrum - red, yellow, blue - are called primary colors. They cannot be obtained by mixing other colors. If you mix the two extreme colors of the spectrum - red and violet, you get a new intermediate color - purple. As a result, we have eight colors considered the most important in practice: yellow, orange, red, purple, violet, blue, cyan and green. By closing this strip into a ring, you can get a color wheel with the same sequence of colors as in the spectrum. If you mix adjacent colors in different proportions in a color wheel of eight colors, you can get many intermediate shades. By mixing orange with yellow, we get orange-yellow and yellow-orange, etc. Color wheels can vary in the number of colors they contain, but not more than 150, because more eyes cannot distinguish.

The color wheel can be divided into two parts so that one part includes red, orange, yellow and yellow-green colors, and the other includes blue-green, cyan, indigo, and violet. The first of them are called warm colors, the second - cold. Classifying colors as warm or cold is based on the fact that red, orange and yellow colors resemble the color of fire, sunlight, and hot objects; blue, blue, violet colors resemble the color of water, airy distance, ice. Pure green is considered a neutral color. It can be warm if yellowish tints are noticeable in it, and cold if bluish and bluish tints predominate in it.

Hue (shade of a color) is referred to by terms such as yellow, green, blue, etc. Saturation is the degree or strength of expression of a color tone. This color characteristic indicates the amount of dye or the concentration of the dye.

Lightness is a feature that allows you to compare any chromatic color with one of the gray colors called achromatic.

Qualitative characteristics of chromatic color:

· Color tone

· lightness

· saturation. (Figure 8)

Color tone determines the name of the color: green, red, yellow, blue, etc. This is the quality of the color, which allows you to compare it with one of the spectral or purple colors (except chromatic) and give it a name.

Lightness is also a property of color. Light colors include yellow, pink, blue, light green, etc., dark colors include blue, purple, dark red, and other colors.

Lightness characterizes how much a particular chromatic color is lighter or darker than another color or how close a given color is to white.

This is the degree of difference of a given color from black. It is measured by the number of thresholds of difference from a given color to black. The lighter the color, the higher its lightness. In practice, it is customary to replace this concept with the concept of “brightness”.

Term saturation color is determined by its (color) proximity to the spectral. The closer the color is to the spectral, the more saturated it is. For example, yellow is the color of lemon, orange is the color of orange, etc. The color loses its saturation due to the admixture of white or black paint.

Color saturation characterizes the degree of difference between a chromatic color and an achromatic color of equal lightness.

COLOR HONE SATURATION LIGHTNESS

Color tone determines the place of color in the spectrum ("red-green-yellow-blue") This is the main characteristic of color. In a physical sense, COLOR TONE depends on the wavelength of light. Long waves are the red part of the spectrum. Short ones - shift to the blue-violet side. The average wavelength is yellow and green colors, they are most optimal for the eye.

There are ACHROMATIC colors. It's black, white, and the whole scale of gray in between. They have no TONE. Black is the absence of color, white is a mixture of all colors. Grays are usually obtained from mixing two or more colors. All others are CHROMATIC colors.

The degree of color chromaticity is determined saturation. This is the degree of distance of a color from gray of the same lightness. Imagine how the fresh grass next to the road is covered with layer after layer of dust. The more layers of dust, the weaker the original pure green color is visible, the less SATURATION of this green. Colors with maximum saturation are spectral colors, minimum saturation gives complete achromaticity (absence of color tone).

Lightness (brightness) - it is the position of a color on a scale from white to black. Characterized by the words "dark", "light". Compare the color of coffee and the color of coffee with milk. White color has the maximum LIGHTNESS, black has the minimum. Some colors are initially (spectrally) lighter - (yellow). Others are darker (blue).

In Photoshop: The next system that is used in computer graphics is the H.S.B.. Raster formats do not use the system H.S.B. for storing images, since it contains only 3 million colors.

In system H.S.B. color is broken down into three components:

HUE(Hue) - The frequency of the light wave reflected from the object you see.
SATURATION(Saturation) is the purity of a color. This is the ratio of the main tone and its equal brightness, colorless gray. The most saturated color contains no gray at all. The lower the color saturation, the more neutral it is, the more difficult it is to unambiguously characterize it.

· BRIGHTNESS(Brightness) is the overall brightness of a color. The minimum value of this parameter turns any color to black. . (Figure 9)

(Figure 10)

Even in ancient India, unique ideas about the close relationship between music and color developed. In particular, the Hindus believed that every person has his own melody and color. The brilliant Aristotle argued in his treatise “On the Soul” that the relationship of colors is similar to musical harmonies.

The Pythagoreans preferred white as the dominant color in the Universe, and the colors of the spectrum in their view corresponded to seven musical tones. Colors and sounds in the cosmogony of the Greeks are active creative forces.

In the 18th century, the monk-scientist L. Castel conceived the idea of constructing a “color harpsichord.” Pressing a key would present the listener with a bright spot of color in a special window above the instrument in the form of a colored moving ribbon, flags, shining with various colors of precious stones, illuminated by torches or candles to enhance the effect.

Composers Rameau, Telemann and Grétry paid attention to Castel's ideas. At the same time, he was sharply criticized by encyclopedists who considered the analogy “seven sounds of the scale – seven colors of the spectrum” to be untenable.

The phenomenon of “colored” hearing

The phenomenon of color vision of music was discovered by some outstanding musical figures. To the brilliant Russian composer N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, famous Soviet musicians B.V. Asafiev, S.S. Skrebkov, A.A. Quesnel and others saw all keys of major and minor as painted in certain colors. Austrian composer of the 20th century. A. Schoenberg compared colors with the musical timbres of the instruments of a symphony orchestra. Each of these outstanding masters saw their own colors in the sounds of music.

For example, for Rimsky-Korsakov D major had a golden hue and evoked a feeling of joy and light; for Asafiev, it was painted the color of emerald green lawn after spring rain.
D flat major it seemed dark and warm to Rimsky-Korsakov, lemon yellow to Quesnel, a red glow to Asafiev, and to Skrebkov it evoked associations with the color green.

But there were also surprising coincidences.

About tonality E major expressed as blue, the color of the night sky.
D major Rimsky-Korsakov evoked associations with a yellowish, regal color, for Asafiev it was sun rays, intense hot light, and for Skrebkov and Quesnel it was yellow.

It is worth noting that all of the named musicians possessed.

“Color painting” with sounds

Works by N.A. Musicologists often call Rimsky-Korsakov “sound painting.” This definition is associated with the marvelous imagery of the composer’s music. Rimsky-Korsakov's operas and symphonic compositions are rich in musical landscapes. The choice of tonal plan for nature paintings is by no means accidental.

Seen in blue tones, E major and E flat major, in the operas “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, “Sadko”, “The Golden Cockerel”, were used to create pictures of the sea and the starry night sky. Sunrise in the same operas is written in A major – the key of spring, pink.

In the opera “The Snow Maiden” the ice girl first appears on stage in “blue” E major, and her mother Vesna-Krasna - in “spring, pink” A major. The manifestation of lyrical feelings is conveyed by the composer in the “warm” D-flat major - these include scenes of the melting of the Snow Maiden, who received the great gift of love.

The French impressionist composer C. Debussy did not leave precise statements about his vision of music in color. But his piano preludes - "Terrace Visited by Moonlight", in which the sound flares shimmer, "Girl with Flaxen Hair", written in subtle watercolor tones, suggest that the composer had clear intentions to combine sound, light and color.

C. Debussy “Girl with Flaxen Hair”

Debussy's symphonic work “Nocturnes” allows you to clearly feel this unique “light-color-sound”. The first part, “Clouds,” depicts silver-gray clouds slowly moving and fading in the distance. The second nocturne of the “Celebration” depicts bursts of light in the atmosphere, its fantastic dance. In the third nocturne, magical siren maidens sway on the waves of the sea, sparkling in the night air, and sing their bewitching song.

K. Debussy “Nocturnes”

Speaking about music and color, it is impossible not to touch on the work of the brilliant A.N. Scriabin. For example, he clearly felt the rich red color of F major, the golden color of D major, and the blue solemn color of F sharp major. Scriabin did not associate all tonalities with any color. The composer created an artificial sound-color system ( C major is red, G major is orange, and D major is yellow. and further – along the circle of fifths and the color spectrum). The composer's ideas about the combination of music, light and color were most vividly embodied in the symphonic poem “Prometheus”.

Scientists, musicians and artists still argue today about the possibility of combining color and music. There are studies that the periods of oscillations of sound and light waves do not coincide and “color sound” is only a phenomenon of perception. But musicians have definitions: “tonal coloring”, “timbre colors” . And if sound and color are combined in the creative consciousness of the composer, then the grandiose “Prometheus” by A. Scriabin and the majestic sounding landscapes of I. Levitan and N. Roerich are born. In Polenova...

Color tone or color tone. Color in composition

see also

See what “Tone (color)” is in other dictionaries:

Books

Hue

Chromaticity (Chorma)

Saturation

Saturation: 128

Brightness (Value/Brightness)

Brightness/Value: 128

Luminance/Lightness

Lightness/Luminance: 128

Tint, tone, and shade

Complementary Colors

Primary Colors

Color systems RGB, CMYK, HSL

Color tone

Saturation

Color circle

The phenomenon of “colored” hearing

“Color painting” with sounds