COLOR THEORY
AN INADEQUATE INTRODUCTION
Why Study Color Theory？
• Describe colors
• Achieve better Quality and Aesthetics in color application
Describe Colors
• “你说的黑不是黑，你说的白是什么白？”
• How to tell pink (粉红), crimson (深红) and Brick (砖红) ?
• Lipstick? Too hard for a straight man
Describing Colors
• Chroma: How pure a hue is in relation to gray
• Saturation: The degree of purity of a hue.
• Intensity: The brightness or dullness of a hue. One may lower the
intensity by adding white or black.
• Luminance / Value: A measure of the amount of light reflected from
a hue. Those hues with a high content of white have a higher
luminance or value.
Physical Truth
White=All Color
Black=No Color
Blue object
Red object
Color Systems
• SUBTRACTIVE COLOR
The CMYK color system is the
color system used for printing.
• ADDITIVE COLOR
The RGB colors are light primaries
and colors are created with light.
Colors used in painting is also an example
of the subtractive color method.
Color Wheel
A color wheel is a visual representation of
colors arranged according to their chromatic
relationship.
Color Terminology
Primary Colors
Secondary Colors
Complementary Colors
Tertiary Colors
Analogous Colors
From Draw to Display
• Maxwell demonstrated the first color photographic image in 1861
using subtractive color method.
• Munsell develop the first wildly-accepted color order system——
Munsell color system. Munsell describe visible colors as a color solid
which is a eccentric sphere with three parameters.
Three Primary Color Theory
• Thomas Young (1773-1829) proposed that people can see different
colors because eye have three types of nerves corresponding
separately towards red, green and violet.
• Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894) revised the theory and change the
three color into red, green and blue.
• In 1959, physiology experiment confirmed the theory as three
different kinds of cone cell was found in human’s eyes.
RGB
• Modern RGB color system was founded based on experiment. The
experiments were conducted by using a circular split screen. On one
side of the field a test color was projected and on the other side, an
observer-adjustable color was projected. The adjustable color was a
mixture of three primary colors, each with fixed chromaticity, but
with adjustable brightness.
R：700nm
G：546.1nm
B：435.8nm
The CIE1931 RGB color matching function
CIEXYZ
• The CIE model defines Y as luminance. Z is quasi-equal to blue
stimulation, or the S cone response, and X is a mix (a linear
combination) of cone response curves chosen to be nonnegative.
The CIE1931 XYZ color matching function
The CIE 1931 color space chromaticity diagram
Development Trends——Better Color Model
• CIELUV
• CIELab
• CIECAM02
Development Trends—— Bigger Color Space
Billions of colors in the visible spectrum
Millions display in a monitor
Thousands can be printed by a high quality printer
COLOR HARMONY
很玄学的科学
• Two Widely Accepted Descriptions of Color Harmony：
Colors seen together to produce pleasing affective response are
said to be in harmony
——Burchett KE. Color harmony.
The range of theories corresponding to color harmony is based
on two key concepts: equilibrium or balance of opposites or
opposing forces; and the overall unity of overall color
appearance.
——Arnkil H. What is color harmony?
A plethora of colour harmony theories, models, and formulae
exist in the literature; however, a lack of consensus exists
regarding a definition of colour harmony.
——Zena O’Connor, Colour Harmony Revisited
• Philosophy Supporting Color Harmony Models
Harmony is order
Harmony implies balance, a symmetry of forces
• Well-known Color Harmony Models
Munsell [1921]
Moon and Spencer [1944]
Itten [1973]
Matsuda [1995]
• Munsell Color System
• Munsell Color System
• Munsell Color System
• Munsell provided a set of four prescriptive rules based on
• (1) Hue (‘‘use as few as possible’’),
• (2) Value (‘‘use a high value with a low value’’),
• (3) Chroma (‘‘use a strong chroma with a weak chroma’’)
• (4) Area (where ‘‘Area is inversely proportional to the product of value
times chroma’’)
• And suggested that “Color harmony is attained when any three of the
forgoing rules are followed’’
• Moon & Spencer Color Harmony Model
• Moon and Spencer suggested that ‘‘any arrangement of colors that
can be sensed as an orderly combination will be pleasing’’
• M=O/C
• Where O is the number of elements of order , and C is the number of
elements of complexity.
• Moon & Spencer Color Harmony Model
𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 = 𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝐵𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 + 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟
𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝐵𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 =
𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 × 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 ,
𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 𝑆𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑀𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 = 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑎 × 𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎
𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 𝑂𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 = 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝐼 × 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟+ 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑆 × 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟
+ 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝐶 × 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟+ 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝐴 × 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑚𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟
𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑥𝑖𝑡𝑦 = 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑠
+ 𝑁𝑜. 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 ℎ𝑢𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒
+ 𝑁𝑜. 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒
+ 𝑁𝑜. 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑐ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑎 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒
• Moon & Spencer Color Harmony Model
Itten Color Contrast Theory
• Seven Kinds of Color Contrast
•
1. Contrast of hue
•
2. Light-dark contrast
•
3. Cold-warm contrast
•
4. Complementary contrast
•
5. Simultaneous contrast
•
6. Contrast of saturation
•
7. Contrast of extension
http://www.utdallas.edu/~melacy/pages/2D_Design/Itten_ColorContrasts/IttenColorContrasts.html
Contrast of hue
Light-dark contrast
Contrast of saturation
Simultaneous contrast
Contrast of extension
Matsuda Color Harmony Model
A collection of colors that fall into the gray areas is considered
to be harmonic. The templates may be rotated by an arbitrary
angle.
Matsuda Color Harmony Model
𝑀𝑎𝑡𝑠𝑢𝑑𝑎 𝐻𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 = 𝑀𝑎𝑥(𝑃(𝑝𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒|𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙𝑠))
Limitation
• Munsell is more a color describing tool than a harmony model.
• Moon-Spencer model is only fit for simple combination of several
colors and the quantization function is not continuous.
• Itten contrast model provide no general quantization algorithm.
• Matsuda model is only a subset of possible harmony combinations.
• No mechanical colour system is flexible enough
to precalculate the manifold changing factors in
a single prescribed recipe
𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦 = 𝑓(𝑐𝑜𝑙1,2,3…𝑛 ) × (ID + CE + CX + P + T)
• 𝑓: the interaction between colour (Col1,2,3...n)
• ID: Individual differences such as age, gender, personality, and
affective state
• CE: Cultural experiences
• CX: The prevailing context which includes setting and ambient lighting;
• P: Intervening perceptual effects
• T: The effects of time such as social or design trends that change over
time
Idea
• How to qualify color combinations’ aesthetics without considering
semantic meaning?
• Is there any correlation between aesthetics and entropy of color?
• Improve Saliency model with color contrast theory?
• Optimize the Moon-Spencer Model? Rule driven or data driven?
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