Color is the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye resulting from how the object reflects or emits light.

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Color is characterized by THREE Attributes:

Hue, Saturation and Luminosity (HSL)

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1. Hue—a pure color created by a specific wavelength of light

2. Saturation—the strength and intensity of a color (the amount of a color used)

3. Luminosity—brightness or glow of the color (this is often also called value and tone as well)

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The path towards creating creative photos benefits from a high understanding of colors and their impact on an image, as well as a high awareness of colors surrounding you. Colors, and how they're arranged, can either make or break a shot.  Different colors can send out different messages, and they indeed have an important visual weight and impact on a photo.

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Moods Created by Colors

Yellows and reds are awakening and vibrant. Yellow, red, and orange are considered to be warm colors. These are associated with sun and fire. Blues and greens are comforting and soothing. Blue, violet, and green are considered to be cool colors. These are associated with snow, water, and shadows.

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Paying attention to color and it's emotional messages and meanings is an important step towards photographic maturity. There are colors everywhere. Macro insect photography is filled with interesting colors. Nature, cities, people and their clothing, houses, streets, skies, beaches. everything around you is filled with color. You just need to be aware of it, and train your eyes to see it.

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Chroma

Chroma is how pure a color is…a low chroma color has considerable gray in it and is more muted, a high chroma color has no gray in it and is more vibrant. Vibrant colors with higher chroma values are energetic, interesting, and active. This can make your image jump out and come to life. Muted  colors with lower chroma values are calming and sedative. These can make your image feel peaceful and serene. By the way, black and white images are really using pure shades of gray (zero chroma values) mixed with pure black tones (all colors combined) & white tones (absence of color)

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Color has two sets: primary colors, and secondary colors.

Red, blue, and yellow are the primary colors. From these 3 colors, the secondary colors are created of violet, orange, & green. Mixing red and blue creates violet. Mixing blue and yellow creates green, mixing yellow and red creates orange. Mixing equal amounts of blue, red, and yellow produces black.

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Color Wheel

Pairs of colors that fall opposite to each other on the color wheel are called contrasting colors. These pairs contrast and intensify one another when put together. 

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Pairs of colors that fall next to each other on the color wheel are called complimentary colors. These pairs complement and harmonize one another when put together.

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Studying the color wheel can give you a better understanding as to how colors affect or complement each other, so that you can use this knowledge to better prevail the correct meanings and messages in your photography.

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Using Color to Your Advantage

You can also really bring out the colors in your image by adjusting the HSL values when editing. You can emphasize or deemphasize certain colors by using editing techniques such as color dodging and burning, and you can change the colors in an image by altering the hue value. There needs to be the perfect balance of color: not enough and the image is boring, but too much and the image looks unrealistic

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Be careful of creating color cast—a haze of a particular color throughout all colors in an entire image. Color casts are removed by using the proper white balance to make colors more pure

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Color Harmony

Color Harmony—all colors in a composition need to work together and not compete with each other. Bad color harmony alone can destroy a wonderful shot. As stated before, one thing to remember is that any single color on its own is going to vary in two different ways: Saturation & Luminosity. You need to color manage and balance those two parts for each color to make them all work together

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When you witness a sunset with wonderful colors and scenery in person, everything looks great because you're experiencing it with all your senses. In a photograph, it's a different story. When you look at a rectangular frame with a photograph in it, your eyes and brain without knowing are looking for interesting elements to keep your mind busy at it. A good composition makes a huge difference right off the bat, color harmony makes a whole lot of difference! This is often the first thing that a person notices in a picture.

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While some notes on a piano sound good and harmonious together, other random notes could sound irritating. Color is the same way. Color harmony rarely exists in nature and when the scene is transformed into a photograph, there has to be some color shift for it all to come together. The competing colors in your scene have to work together, and not against the composition. Bad color harmony alone can destroy a wonderful shot.

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