Value is an element of design separate from color but very closely related, similar to how shape and line are easily grouped together. Value is where we get the lightness and darkness of a color, and where we find black, white, and gray. So here is an important point: black and white are NOT colors, they are values. It is convenient for us to refer to values like black and white as colors when we are asked what color our car or shirt is, but value and color are two different things.
It is often said that white is all of the colors combined and black is the absence of color, but this is only true from the perspective of additive color mixing; when things are inverted for subtractive mixing black becomes the sum of all colors and white is the absence. (see Color Theory: Part 1 for more on color mixing)
A good way to represent most colors is to treat color as the x-axis and value as the y-axis in a set up like this:
When a color has white added to it, it is called a tint, and when black is added it is called a shade. So with value added to the mix we can now get colors like brown, which is a shade of orange, and pink, which is a tint of red. (Side note: it may also be helpful to think of color as frequency and value as amplitude.)
The second part of this essay will cover fluorescence, aka "neon" colors. Similar to how you wont find tints and shades in the rainbow, you also wont find "hot pink" or "neon green." There is actually quite a lot of chemistry and physics to learn to really understand what is going on to make these colors so bright but I will provide a simple overview here. To understand how a fluorescent color can be so bright we have to take a look at the electromagnetic spectrum:
Our eyes can only pick up on the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation in the range that we call visible light. The red side of the spectrum is for the slower/less energetic frequencies and the blue end is for the faster/higher energy frequencies. Ultraviolet light is too energetic for our eyes to see, and when a material has the property of florescence it means it is absorbing these higher energy waves of light and emitting them back out; they lose some energy in the process and "slow down" enough for us to see them. In other words, florescent colors are so bright because they are emitting bonus light from a part of the spectrum that isn't visible to us. The effect is especially noticeable when using an ultraviolet light, or a "black light," because they only emit a small amount of visible light but a large amount of UV light. This leaves the room mostly dark except for the black light reactive items, making them look like they glow in the dark.
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