Color basics; beyond your crayons

Peruvian Lilies on a table.

     All this talk about color, but what do we really know about it or the terminology tied to it?

     Let's take a look at some of the terminology first.

       Hue:  is a color, dependent on its dominate wave length.
       Shade: is a color with regard to how dark it is; a color mixed with black.
       Tint:  a color with regard to how light it is; a color mixed with light.
       Chroma:  how pure a hue (color) is in relationship to gray.
       Saturation:  the degree of purity of a hue (color).
       Intensity:  This has a relationship to shades and tints. You can lower the intensity by adding white or black.
       Luminance or value:  This is a measure of the amount of light reflected from a hue (color).

     Color is basically a characteristic of light we describe by a color name. Light is composed of many colors.  We see the visible spectrum that consists of red, orange,yellow, green, blue,  and violet.  That happens is that objects absorb certain wavelengths and then reflect others back to our eyes.  We see these wavelengths as color.  We use the previously defined terminology to describe the color we see.

     It seems so much easier to just go to the store and pick out a paint card of the color you want.  But it helps when decorating a home, business or any space, to have a brief understanding of color and the words that we use to describe it.