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Color Definitions

Here are definitions of the color terms you'll encounter.

Rather than placing them in alphabetical order, the terms are grouped with similar terms.

Hue

Hue is another word for color.

Saturation

Saturation is the amount of gray in a color.

Think of it as being the vividness/richness of a color.

Luminosity

Luminosity is the brightness of the tones.

Think of it as being the black-and-white component of color.

Contrast

Contrast is the relationship of the tones in a photograph.

When contrast is low, the whites are grayish and the blacks are also grayish.

When contrast is high, whites are more purely white and blacks are purely black.

Color Model

A color model describes the colors we see.

The model distributes numerical values for color in three dimensions to represent the visible spectrum of color.

Color Space

A color space shows the gamut of colors that can be produced using a particular color model.

Whereas a color model determines the relationship between color values, a color space defines the those values as being certain colors.