

One approach in color science is to use traditional color terms but try to give them more precise definitions. There exists some correspondence, more or less precise, between hue values and color terms (names). Specifically, in CIELAB h a b = a t a n 2 ( b ∗, a ∗ ), h_ in CIELUV. Hue is the angular component of the polar representation, while chroma is the radial component. In opponent color spaces in which two of the axes are perceptually orthogonal to lightness, such as the CIE 1976 ( L*, a*, b*) ( CIELAB) and 1976 ( L*, u*, v*) ( CIELUV) color spaces, hue may be computed together with chroma by converting these coordinates from rectangular form to polar form. The Munsell color system from the 1930s was a great step forward, as it was realized that perceptual uniformity means the color space can no longer be a sphere.Īs a convention, the hue for red is set to 0° for most color spaces with a hue. The concept of a color system with a hue was explored as early as 1830 with Philipp Otto Runge's color sphere. The human brain first processes hues in areas in the extended V4 called globs. In painting, a hue is a pure pigment-one without tint or shade (added white or black pigment, respectively). Exceptions include brown, which is a dark orange. Usually, colors with the same hue are distinguished with adjectives referring to their lightness or colorfulness - for example: "light blue", " pastel blue", "vivid blue", "cobalt blue".

The other color appearance parameters are colorfulness, saturation (also known as intensity or chroma), lightness, and brightness. Hue can typically be represented quantitatively by a single number, often corresponding to an angular position around a central or neutral point or axis on a color space coordinate diagram (such as a chromaticity diagram) or color wheel, or by its dominant wavelength or by that of its complementary color. In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet," within certain theories of color vision. Look up hue in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
