Colour Theory 3

In todays colour theory lesson we took a more in depth look at the different types of contrast and how to understand them in practice in the hope that we could then have a better chance of being able to control them in our work.

Pantone matching the pieces of paper so I can use the colours
to play with different contrasts on photoshop to see how they
look on screen compared to how they look when printed.

This shows how how the star looks differently coloured depending
on what coloured background the item is placed against.

Yellow Background

Fairly close tones and so they blend together and have little contrast of tone. Their is a slight contrast in hue but not much to make a significant difference. The main difference is the saturation, as the green is a much purer green than the yellow.

Green Background

The similar hues mean that the green background brings out the yellow in the star more due to the background being more saturated than the star. There's a very small contrast of tone due to the hues being very similar on the colour wheel.

Blue Background

The contrast of tone makes the green star look slightly darker, although the contrast of hue isn't too different. The contrast of saturation if very strong as both colours are very saturated, it's just that the blue is a fairly light tint. 

Orange Background

The contrast of tone is quite strong because of how much darker the orange is than the green. Their is a very strong contrast of hue because of how far apart they are on the colour wheel. The contrast of saturation isn't so strong because the orange seems a lot more saturated than the green. Their is a fairly strong contrast of temperature as with the green being a neutral colour, the orange is made to look warmer. There is also some simultaneous contrast going on, as the orange makes the green look bluer, and the green makes the orange look more red. This also results in a bit of complimentary contrast. 

Red Background

Again there's a strong contrast of tone and saturation due to the red being much darker and purer than the green. Their is strong complimentary contrast because of how different the hues of red and green are.

We then looked at how different combinations of printing plates can affect the colour in CMYK printing. The left colours show Cyan, Yellow and Magenta having all been printed, whereas on the right only Cyan and Magenta have been used. We then used linen testers to look at how the dots are printed individually.