Colour Theory

The basics

Primary Colours
Blue, Red and Yellow
(Pure colours)

Secondary Colours
Green, Orange and Purple
(Primaries mixed)
Secondary colours are formed by mixing two primary colours together.

Tertiary Colours
Tertiary colours can be made by mixing either a primary colour with a secondary colour or two secondary colours together.

Understanding your colours in swatches

When using your Adobe programs it is interesting to know about the colours you're using and how the colour swatch panel works. The x-axis of your panel describes the tint of a colour whereas the y-axis refers to the shades.

                                       (Image 1.0 visually describes the colour swatch panel)


Hue describes what the colour is. When using a colour picker, the hue changes when the tool is moved over different colours. This can be useful when trying to find a certain colour. If you have a colour in an image that you would like to use for your designs, simply select the eye dropper tool in your Adobe programs, click on the colour and transfer this colour to your designs.

Saturation describes the intensity of a colour and how much white content is in a colour. Saturation can also be referred to as the "tint".

Brightness/Luminance describes the intensity of light or dark for a colour. Brightness refers to how much black content is in the colour rather than how much white content like saturation is measured.

Value is defined by the grey value of a colour when it has been converted to greyscale. For example; when converted to greyscale, the colours red and green have the same value.