{"id":361,"date":"2007-06-15T22:31:46","date_gmt":"2007-06-15T22:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/?p=361"},"modified":"2007-09-25T01:35:23","modified_gmt":"2007-09-24T18:35:23","slug":"seeing-values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/2007\/06\/seeing-values\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Values"},"content":{"rendered":"

Value is the most\u00a0difficult of the three properties of color to see correctly. Hue is very easy – we are used to putting colors into their family groups.\u00a0 Saturation is easy once you get the hang of it – colors are clear, muted, or muddy. But value often stumps us.<\/p>\n

Color theory books\u00a0traditionally\u00a0illustrate a value scale using\u00a0one of the many variations of a\u00a0gray scale<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The most common gray scales have\u00a09\u00a0to 11 values running from black to white with a middle gray<\/a>\u00a0somewhere in the center.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me it is easier to start analyzing value contrasts\u00a0by thinking of value as having only three families –\u00a0 light, medium and dark.<\/p>\n

\"valuekey9.gif\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dark\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Medium\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Light<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dark<\/strong> = Colors that you have trouble seeing on black\u00a0backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Medium =<\/strong> Colors that you can see clearly on both white and black backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Light<\/strong> = Colors that you have trouble seeing\u00a0on\u00a0white backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Training Your Eye.<\/strong> Its\u00a0easy to practice looking at colors and naming their values, especially with only three groups to put them in.\u00a0You can check yourself\u00a0 by comparing the full color image to the black and white version.<\/p>\n

Here are some\u00a0ways to\u00a0turn a color image into black and white so you can\u00a0 “see” the values.<\/p>\n

1. Squint.<\/strong> The easiest way to check value contrast is to squint your eyes until they are almost closed and look at\u00a0an image. The light colors will pop. The dark colors will fall into a dark hole. And the middle value colors will\u00a0hang in\u00a0between.\"header2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Let’s look at my header. There’s lots of color, or Hue, and value variation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"maggiebwcorel.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Now let’s look\u00a0the header in black and white.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the beads are polychromatic, made of many hues, the values naturally run from the dark value blues and violets\u00a0to the light value yellows.<\/p>\n

\"dante-marioni-bw.jpg\"<\/p>\n

2. Photoshop.<\/strong> If you have Photoshop or some other photo program, you can remove color from an image and check out the values.<\/p>\n

\"dante-marioni.jpg\"This is Dante Maroni’s Chartreuse Trio with the color removed. Even though the vessels are all chartreuse- the shadows and highlights create many values.<\/p>\n

3. B&W Print.<\/strong> If you don’t have a photo program, you can insert an image into a word processing document and then print it on your printer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a Seurat painting printed in color and then printed in grayscale on my color printer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"seurat_grande_jatte1.jpg\"\"seurat_grande_jattebw1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

4. B&W Copy.<\/strong> You can also make a black and white copy of an image – or of your own work – to check the value range. Use a color copier if you can. It costs more\u00a0but the\u00a0value range will be much better than a\u00a0regular copy.<\/p>\n

Here is a Dupont Value Scale in color and copied in black and white. Squint your eyes until they are almost closed and compare the amount of value contrast in each version. The yellow appears darker in the black and white. Its difficult for copiers to “see” all the value correctly.<\/p>\n

Notice that cyan, magenta and yellow are all lighter in value than red, green and blue.<\/p>\n

\"13079-color_grayscale.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"13079-color_grayscale-bw.jpg\"\u00a0<\/p>\n

5. Digital Camera.<\/strong> On most digital cameras, there’s an option to shoot in black and white. It fun to\u00a0switch to\u00a0black and white mode and use your camera as a value sorter. Just point it at something and look\u00a0at the screen to see it in b&w.<\/p>\n

When you get a chance, use one of the above methods to compare full color\u00a0to black and white images. Its always an eye opener.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Value is the most\u00a0difficult of the three properties of color to see correctly. Hue is very easy – we are used to putting colors into their family groups.\u00a0 Saturation is easy once you get the hang of it – colors are clear, muted, or muddy. But value often stumps us. Color theory books\u00a0traditionally\u00a0illustrate a value […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":7025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggiemaggio.com\/color\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}