Value has already been discussed in a previous post, but just to refresh your memory it is a design term that refers to the level of darkness or lightness of an area within an image. Value is actually a relative term in its colloquial use, but when it is expanded to mean different parts of the spectrum, you are now talking about colour which is a very different beast to tackle.

Colour has three different properties to it: hue, colour value and intensity. While these terms might seem boring to you right now, bear with me because this is stuff you are going to need to know later on when you tackle more advanced concepts of graphic design.

Hue is a property of colour that refers to the actual colour being reflected as a wavelength of light. Therefore, when you are talking about primary colours, secondary colours and other such colour types, what you are discussing is the hue of the colour in question. Value, as is true with the original definition, refers to the relative darkness or lightness of the hue in question. Intensity refers to the amount of black or white has been mixed in with the hue, with a pure hue being a colour that has not had any black or white added to it. Intensity is also sometimes referred to as saturation.

We will deal with more terms regarding colour in the next post and then we will come back to it later on when colour theory is discussed in more detail.

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