Color Theory for Photographers As photographers, we have a lot of tools available to us: compositional rules, lighting knowledge, and so on. Color is just another one of those tools. Knowing and understanding color theory — the way painters, designers, and artists of all trades do — a photographer can utilize color to their benefit.
Order of colors This may cause some flashbacks to elementary school art class, but let’s start at the beginning: The orders of colors. There are three orders: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary colors.
The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. That is to say, they are the three pure colors from which all other colors are derived. If we take two primary colors and add combine them equally, we get a secondary color. Finally, a tertiary color is one which is a combination of a primary and secondary color.
Primary Colors: Red, yellow, and blue are what we call “pure colors.” They are not created by the combining of other colors.
Secondary Colors: A 50/50 combination of any two primary colors. Example: Red + Yellow = Orange.
Tertiary Colors: A 25/75 or 75/25 combination of a primary color and secondary color. Example: Blue + Green = Turquoise.
Now, how do the orders of colors help a photographer? Well, by knowing the three orders, we can make decisions about which colors we want to show in frame.
The Three Variables of Color Now that we’ve been introduced to the orders of the colors, let’s look at their variables. Let’s start with hue.
Hue Hue simply is the shade or name of the color. In our editing programs, this slider allows us to completely change a color. Saturation Saturation is the amount of color, or its intensity.
Luminance Luminance is the brightness of the color.
Color Schemes When you decorate a house, you choose the color of the walls to go with the furniture, wall hangings, curtains, and so on. You’re essentially creating a color scheme. We do the same thing when we set up a shot. When being intentional with the color in your images, scheme absolutely comes into play. Three of the most popular color schemes are complimentary, analogous, and monochrome.
Complementary colors Simply put, complementary colors are the ones which sit completely opposite one another on the color wheel, and they, ahem — complement one another. There’s a reason these combinations create such strong emotions in us — they just look good together.
Figure 3c: Shades of blue complement oranges.
Analogous colors Colors which sit next to each other on the color wheel and share similar colors are known as analogous colors.
Figure 4c: Analogous shades of blues and purples.
Monochrome colors Refers to anything which uses solely one color in different shades. Those images you see where there is overwhelmingly one color present are considered monochrome.
Figure 5c: Shades of pink.