HUE AND SATURATION

Hue and saturation affect our visual hierarchy, or the order in which we see things and their impact. Increasing contrast can help create hierarchy.

Hue describes a full value pigment. A fully saturated color that has not been modified by the addition of other colors, including white and black. This means that color is presented with full clarity and force.

When you begin to modify color by adding agents to LIGHTEN or DARKEN we start to create a different impact. If you add BLACK to a color it will make a SHADE, and if you add WHITE to a color it will create a TINT.

Saturation describes the amount of pigment present within a color.

Visual hierarchy affects the order in which we see things and it affects visual impact of those things. As you know, color is a powerful tool and we can use it to draw attention to form. So by manipulating contrast we create visual interest and we can also create drama.

The greatest contrast in color that you can achieve comes from combining what we call complementary colors. As you already know, these are colors that oppose each other on the color wheel. We will see the impact of complementary schemes on this course. The colors that oppose each other on the color wheel, when brought together fully saturated, create great dramatic impact.

Examples of complementary colors are orange and blue, red and green, yellow and violet.