Hue

Hue" is what we call any color that can be plucked, in a pure state, out of the light spectrum. Think of a rainbow, or that array of colors one gets when using a prism - the results are hues. It all has to do with light and wavelengths thereof.
Confusion creeps in to this definition when speaking of hues of pigmented color, rather than elements of the light spectrum. In this context (pigmented color), the phrase "a hue of blue/red/yellow/insert color here" is often bandied about, when the more accurate terms shade or tint should be employed.

Pronunciation: hew

Also Known As: color

Examples:

"Drawing contains everything, except the hue." - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Saturation

Color saturation refers to how vivid and intense a color is. For example, a display with poor color saturation will look washed out or faded. When a color's saturation level is reduced to 0, it becomes a shade of gray.




Saturation is an expression for the relative bandwidth of the visible output from a light source. In the diagram, the saturation is represented by the steepness of the slopes of the curves. Here, the red curve represents a color having low saturation, the green curve represents a color having greater saturation, and the blue curve represents a color with fairly high saturation. As saturation increases, colors appear more "pure." As saturation decreases, colors appear more "washed-out."

 

 

                                                     Brightness

Brightness is a relative expression of the intensity of the energy output of a visible light source. It can be expressed as a total energy value (different for each of the curves in the diagram), or as the amplitude at the wavelength where the intensity is greatest (identical for all three curves). In the RGB color model, the amplitudes of red, green, and blue for a particular color can each range from 0 to 100 percent of full brilliance. These levels are represented by the range of decimal numbers from 0 to 255, or hexadecimal numbers from 00 to FF.