Colour Characteristics

1. Hue (Another name for colour)

With hue we define the undertone of the colour

That means whether someone tends to have either a blue based or yellow based undertone e.g. blue red or tomato red. The warmer a colour the more yellow it has and the cooler the colour the more blue it has.

2. Value / Brightness (Depth of the colour)

The value is a measurement of the brightness of a colour. The brighter a colour is, the higher is its value and the more light it emits.

3.  Chroma / Saturation (Clarity of the colour)

Indicates the purity of clarity of a colour or colour intensity.

It is a measurement of how different from pure grey the colour is. Chroma is a measurement how pale or strong the colour is.
Some colours are bright and clear and others are muted or dusty. The softer the colour the more grey it has.

4. Tint, tone and shade

These are terms to describe how a colour varies from its original hue. If white is added, the lighter version of the colour is called a tint of the colour.

On the other hand, if grey is added we get a darker version of the colour, which is called tone and if black is added we get a very dark version of the colour. This is called a shade of the colour.

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