When you first start to explore color theory, chances are that you’ll run across a lot of new terms (and they might seem at first to all refer to the same thing – color)! However, once you dive into this fascinating topic – you’ll learn the subtle differences between things like hue, value, tint, shade and tone.
To start, let’s go over the broadest term in this group of color theory words: hue. In painting, hue actually refers to a pure color – red, yellow, blue – without any white or black added to it. But in a broader sense, hue is just a fancy word for color!
Another term you’ll come across is value – this word is synonymous to what we describe a color as light or dark. You can also think about value in terms of how bright a color is.
Tint, shade and tone are three other terms you might see when reading through color theory. Let’s explore these qualities a bit more in depth.
