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title: Color and Value
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## Color and Value
Color stimulates the eye through the reflection of light on a given object or image. 

Value is the element that refers to lightness and darkness. Where you can add light or dark pigments to color to give off a different hue. 

Hue is a term where adding black or white pigments would result in a shade of said color. 

When discussing visual concepts such as "color" and "value" through written text some missunderstandings can occur. First, color should be understood as the various hues such as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and any combination they make. The some of the most basic color wheels show these 6 colors. Color wheels can quickly become more complex. Rather than showing one color (hue) of purple, a color wheel can show various combinations such as purple with more of a red hue or blue hue. Color wheels can be designed for many purposes. The selection and placements of various colors can help artists and designers view colors differently, and in turn, make more informed color selections. Color can be a powerful tool to influence the viewer emotionally so learning how to speak and view color beyond different hue labels is important.

Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. When a color is selected, such as red, the hue can be changed by the addition of black or white. By positioning a light color next to a dark color creates contrast. The human eye is naturally drawn to contrast. Learning how to use value to create contrast is a valuabel skill to to either directly or indirectly draw the viewers eye to an area on the page.

Denman Ross, created a nine step value scale that ranges from 1 - White, to 9 - Black. The Ross scale is listed below:

1 - White
2 - High light
3 - Light
4 - Low light
5 - Mid value (the original hue)
6 - High dark
7 - Dark
8 - Low dark
9 - Black

When selecting color, be mindful of value to direct the attention of the viewer by creating contrast.

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