color theory In the visual arts, color theory is the body of practical guidance for color mixing and the visual effects of a specific color combination. Color terminology based on the color wheel and its geometry separates colors into primary color, seconda ...

, a tint is a mixture of a color with

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, which increases

lightness Lightness is a visual perception of the luminance (L) of an object. It is often judged relative to a similarly lit object. In colorimetry and color appearance models, lightness is a prediction of how an illuminated color will appear to a stan ...

, while a shade is a mixture with

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

, which increases

darkness Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lu ...

. Both processes affect the resulting color mixture's relative

saturation Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to: Chemistry * Saturation, a property of organic compounds referring to carbon-carbon bonds **Saturated and unsaturated compounds ** Degree of unsaturation **Saturated fat or fatty aci ...

. A tone is produced either by mixing a color with

gray Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

, or by both tinting and shading. Mixing a color with any

neutral color Neutral or neutrality may refer to: Mathematics and natural science Biology * Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity Chemistry and physics * Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...

(including black, gray, and white) reduces the chroma, or

colorfulness Colorfulness, chroma and saturation are attributes of perceived color relating to chromatic intensity. As defined formally by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) they respectively describe three different aspects of chromatic ...

, while the

hue In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that ...

(the relative mixture of red, green, blue, etc. depending on the colorspace) remains unchanged. In the

graphic arts A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.

, especially

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

and

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...

, "tone" has a different meaning, referring to areas of continuous color, produced by various means, as opposed to the linear marks made by an

engraved Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

or drawn line. In common language, the term ''shade'' can be generalized to encompass any varieties of a particular color, whether technically they are shades, tints, tones, or slightly different hues. Meanwhile, the term ''tint'' can be generalized to refer to any lighter or darker variation of a color (e.g.

tinted window Window film (tint) is a thin laminate film that can be installed to the interior or exterior of glass surfaces in automobiles and boats and also to the interior or exterior of glass in homes and buildings. It is usually made from polyethylene te ...

s). When mixing colored light (additive color models), the achromatic mixture of spectrally balanced red, green, and blue (RGB) is always white, not gray or black. When we mix colorants, such as the

pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...

s in

paint Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...

mixtures, a color is produced which is always darker and lower in chroma, or saturation, than the parent colors. This moves the mixed color toward a neutral color—a gray or near-black. Lights are made brighter or dimmer by adjusting their brightness, or energy level; in painting, lightness is adjusted through mixture with white, black, or a color's complement.

In art

It is common among some artistic painters to darken a paint color by adding black paint—producing colors called ''shades''—or to lighten a color by adding white—producing colors called ''tints''. However, this is not always the best way for representational painting, since one result is for colors to also shift in their hues. For instance, darkening a color by adding black can cause colors such as yellows, reds and oranges to shift toward the greenish or bluish part of the spectrum. Lightening a color by adding white can cause a shift towards blue when mixed with reds and oranges. (See

Abney effect The Abney effect or the purity-on-hue effect describes the perceived hue shift that occurs when white light is added to a monochromatic light source. The addition of white light will cause a desaturation of the monochromatic source, as perceive ...

.) Another practice when darkening a color is to use its opposite, or complementary, color (e.g. violet-purple added to yellowish-green) in order to neutralize it without a shift in hue, and darken it if the additive color is darker than the parent color. When lightening a color this hue shift can be corrected with the addition of a small amount of an adjacent color to bring the hue of the mixture back in line with the parent color (e.g. adding a small amount of orange to a mixture of red and white will correct the tendency of this mixture to shift slightly towards the blue end of the spectrum). HSLSphere

References

{{Color topics Color

In art

See also

References