Channels, Fall 2017

Page 2 Conley • Color Theory in Technical Communication experience” (p. 199). He also adds that theorists from Galileo’s time believed color was “a subjective mental construct of physical objects or physical objects that produce visual states of color” (p. 200). Grieve (1991) agreed with the subjective nature of color: “Colour vision as one form of sensory perception can be seen merely as a neural event; however, the individual’s reaction to the color percept is a subjective process” (p. 1319). He later added that color is basically an experience that affects many areas in life (p. 1319). Color’s Three Properties Color has three properties that help explain the wide assortment of existing colors: hue, value (also known as brightness), and saturation (also called chroma). Each property plays a role in determining the differences among colors. They can combine and interact with each other. Hue It can be difficult to technically define “hue,” but it has been defined as the concept that comes to mind when a color’s name is referred to (Keyes 1993; Agoston 1987). Keyes (1993) simply calls hue “simple color as in red, yellow, green, blue-green, etc” (p. 650). Agoston (1987) goes into more detail: When we look at a red light, we perceive a red hue. It is difficult to explain just what the perception of a red hue is, just as it is difficult to explain the perception of bitterness or the aural perception of shrillness. It is sufficient to our purpose to say that when we utter or write the word “red,” or the words “blue” or purple,” we are conveying to others the idea of a particular hue. (p. 12) Hue has also been called a color’s pigment (Mackiewicz 2009). Besides four exceptions called unique hues, hues themselves are mainly viewed as mixtures of greens, yellows, reds, blues, and oranges (Agoston 1987). Kimball and Hawkins (2008) define hue more scientifically as “a human perception of wavelengths of light” (p. 249). Value Hue is only a part of what makes up the concept of color. Value or brightness is another important component. Unlike hue, there are more concrete definitions for value (Keyes 1993; Mackiewicz 2009; Agoston 1987). Keyes (1993) defines value as “the lightness and darkness, relative ‘gray-value’ of colors” (p. 650). Mackiewicz’s (2009) defines it similarly, saying value is the lightness or luminance of color. She also adds that value is related to the amount of light that an object reflects (p. 4). Value has also been termed as brightness. Agoston (1987) refers to value as brightness, defining it as “an attribute of the illumination in which a nonisolated object is viewed” (p. 14). Saturation The last property of color is saturation, also known as chroma. In definition, saturation is closely linked with hue (Agoston 1987; Mackiewicz 2009). Agoston defines saturation as “an attribute of perceived color according to which we judge the relative amount of the hue component in the color” (p. 13). Mackiewicz (2009) agrees with this understanding, saying saturation is the degree of how much a hue is present. Keyes (1993) calls saturation a few