This generally reduces the color’s intensity, making it less vibrant.
The Difference Between Tints, Tones, Shades and Hues
The terms tint, tone, shade and hue are all terms you hear frequently and have probably used often, but most people don’t really understand the difference between them.
To make it more confusing, different industries tend to use different definitions for these terms. As an artist it is important to understand what they are and how they can be achieved through paint mixing.
Knowing how to achieve a tint, tone or shade of a color will give your painting depth, and insure you don’t have odd looking shadows or highlights. For more about shading and highlighting read my post on shadows and highlights.
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Hue
The term “hue” can be a little confusing when it comes to art. First of all, hue is any color on the color wheel. So blue, green, blue green, etc. are all hues. It also refers to the dominant color in a color family, so Indigo, Cobalt, Navy, Cerulean are all blue hues.
Black, white and gray are not hues (you won’t see them on a color wheel). In essence, a hue is a pure color without any black, white or gray added to it.
Secondly, you may see “hue” written on some of your paint tubes. Manufacturers often use the term “hue” when they produce cheaper grades of paint, such as student grades for example.
These paints have more filler and less pigment and are not as light fast as pure pigment. So you may see a student grade version of Cerulean Blue labelled as Cerulean Blue Hue for example. It just means the paint has more filler and less pigment.
Tint
Tints are achieved by adding white to a hue. The white paint lightens the hue and gives it a soft, tranquil appearance. What most people think of as pastel colors are a good example of tints.
When you want to mix a tint, start with white and gradually add your pure color until you get the tint you want. Adding color this way will prevent you from over-mixing and wasting paint.
Adding a tiny bit of white to a pure pigment can increase the opacity of transparent colors. So if you are painting with a yellow, for example and are having trouble getting good coverage you can add a tiny touch of white to make it more opaque or solid.
You could also under-paint the object with white to give you better coverage over a dark color. Be aware that adding white will desaturate the color somewhat so use it sparingly.
Example: Mix white with a tiny amount of Ultramarine Blue. The result would be a pale blue.
You can gradually add more and more blue to the white to get a darker tint. This is a good method to use when painting blue skies or water to give variations in the overall color.
What is a Hue Color?
In art, hue is a pure pigment with no added white or black. So it has no tint or shade.
Furthermore, hue color refers to the dominant color family or the origin of the color you see.
Hues comprise a few colors because they are the root color of tints, shades, and tones. Examples of pure hues include red, yellow, green, and blue.
Since the 17th century, the concept of unique hues has been around. The four unique hues include red, yellow, green, and blue. All others are said to be perceived as mixtures of the four colors.
However, pure hues are debatable as they refer to colors without adding white, gray, or black.
The traditional color wheel consists of 12 hues displayed on a circle. The main hues, also known as primary colors, are red, yellow, and blue, equally spaced. The secondary hues – green, orange, and purple – are created by mixing two primary hues.
Red, yellow, and blue are the primary pure hues in painting since they cannot be made by combining other colors. Green, orange, and purple – the secondary colors – are also considered hues because they do not contain white, gray, or black.
There are also six intermediate hues such as red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, and red-purple.
They are referred to as “intermediate” because they don’t have a dominant hue.
Also known as intermediate colors, these are created by mixing a pure hue with a secondary hue.
So there are 12 basic hues: yellow, yellow-orange, orange, red-orange, red, red-purple, purple, blue-purple, blue, blue-green, green, and yellow-green.
In the Munsell color system, there are five main hues: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple; in addition, as well as five intermediate hues: yellow-red, green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue, and red-purple.
But is pink a hue? No, pink is not a pure hue; it is a tint of red resulting from adding white to a red base.
The Properties of Color
Color is usually defined by three qualities: hue, saturation, and value.
What is Hue?
Hue is the base color displayed on the color wheel, without any tint or shade. This one is most associated with the color’s name. So, for example, when we say red, we’re referring to the red hue.
Technically, hue is an angle that varies between 0 and 360 degrees. For example, red falls between 0 and 60 degrees, and yellow between 60 and 120 degrees.
When it comes to light, hue can be defined as the dominant wavelength of light emitted by an object and perceived by our eyes.
What is Saturation?
Saturation (also known as Chroma or Intensity) refers to the intensity of a color.
Saturation is measured as a percentage ranging from 0 to 100. The lower the saturation (closer to zero), the closer to pure gray. The more saturated the color, the more vibrant it is.
Thus, color is at full saturation when it contains no gray or a mixture of black and white. This results in a bright, vivid color.
As a color gets desaturated, it becomes duller – a tone of a hue.
What is Color Value?
Value (also known as Lightness or Brightness) relates to how light or dark the color is. So value describes the brightness of a color and is measured between 0 and 100 percent, where 0 means all black and 100 is the brightest.
If you were to take a color and convert it to grayscale, the resulting shade of gray is the value of the color.
This quality of color is important because it helps us perceive the shape and form of objects by showing how light interacts with their surfaces.
So what is the difference between saturation and value? While saturation refers to the brightness or dullness of a color, value describes its lightness or darkness.
HSV Color Model
Unfortunately, the color wheels only describe one attribute of color, namely the hue. Thus, to see saturation and brightness (or value), it is best to use a 3D color space, such as HSV or HSL. They describe all three attributes of color: hue, saturation, and brightness (or lightness).
HSV is a 3D (or cylindrical) color model that translates RGB colors into friendlier dimensions. This model works with all three color attributes: hue, saturation, and value (or brightness).
What is a Tint?
Tint is any hue or mixture of pure colors to which white is added. A tint color is a whitened color, resulting in a paler shade. In general, pastel colors are tints.
To mix a tint in art, start with a white base and gradually add the color you want to lighten.
A tint is always a lighter version of the color, not brighter because adding white makes the base hue desaturated.
Unlike tones, tints don’t contain gray.
- Pink is technically a tint of red as it combines red and white.
- Celeste and baby blue are tints of blue because they are pale versions created by mixing a pure hue (blue) with white.
- Apricot is a tint of yellow-orange.
- Peach is an orange tint with lots of white added.
