Color Theory You Never Learned: Hue Planes

Everyone knows the hue circle - but what about the hue plane?
On my previous video about color harmony ( • You're Wrong about Col... ), a user commented that I never fully explained hue planes - so here we go!
In this video, you’ll learn about how color is more than just a wheel - it can be organized as a three dimensional space. And a vertical slice of that space, showing all variations of a single hue, is called a hue plane.
One key insight to be gained from studying the hue planes of a given gamut is how different planes have different shapes. This is because different hues achieve their full chroma (or, a color’s difference from a gray of the same lightness) at different levels of lightness.
You’ll also learn how different color systems have divided hue planes to name color variants (called “characters” by the Color Literacy Project, “nuances” in the Natural Color System, or “tones” by the Practical Color Coordinate system).
And finally, you’ll learn about some different ways systems have organized hue planes along different lines of perceptual measures - lightness, chroma, saturation, and even vividness and depth.
If you’d like to know more about perceptual dimensions of color, I encourage you to visit David Briggs’ excellent site, www.huevaluechroma.com
The color globe model I used is by Kolormondo. Highly recommended, especially if you're an art teacher!
The RGB model is a discontinued product, the Colorcube Puzzle.

[@owo679]

It's crazy how you can FEEL when someone actually knows a lot about a topic and wants to share knowledge and not just talk empty words and make money. These videos are so valuable, thank you for brain dumping!! All the references to existing systems and books etc. Are so helpful bc I can go and research myself! Thank you so so much! I hope this is the future youtube videos!

[@Noah_Bristol]

Dropping a comment because I love these longer form videos and I'd love to see you do more. ✌

[@ColorNerd1]

Thanks! More are coming :)

[@squid24736]

always looking for more ways to conceptualize color!

[@qualia765]

i am very upset at KZbin for not recommending this channel sooner your videos are soooo good

[@moscitra]

YT just recommended me your channel. Really glad that I clicked on it. This is a great demonstration.

[@lorenzo_renga]

I have been working as a graphic designer for 6 years, and I have continued to read and study during all these years, even though school is long over, but every video of yours that I see I discover new relevant information. I hate Google for encouraging the visibility of articles and videos with a superficial and many times wrong level of information, keep making videos like these!!!

[@hadarnesher]

I saw your channel only today and i love it, to see someone who know what they are saying when they are talking about colors is not easy. I would love to see a video about color spaces, how they work and the terminology. It is a pretty confusing topic

[@organobot]

i love the water tower painting in the background!

[@Preevo-x4r]

Excellent video. I would really love to hear your thoughts on value contrast vs hue contrast. And how would you approache color and composition.

[@101darkeyes101]

I would love to see a tutorial on how to create a shading series using okhcl, for either traditional or digital painting. Especially with a limited pallette setup. Thanks for the great videos!

[@tristenarcher1537]

Please more more more. I want to see more additive color theory 🙏

[@jewelsauls3103]

Thank you so much! I always learn so much from your content. After a lifetime of intuitively knowing what I was being told didn't quite wory, it is refreshing and validating to hear your research!

[@emailaddress9678]

thanks so much for this video! i learned a lot, makes a lot of sense now why using digital color pickers can be a challenge of trial and error

[@toddb4089]

This is so interesting, Thank you for taking the time to teach.

[@TanishqSadanala]

Nice to see you in wide aspect ratio and high definition.

[@ColorNerd1]

Eyyy you noticed

[@BrunoReisVideo]

a bit confused as to what's the difference between chroma and saturation your videos have been opening my mind so much 😄

[@ColorNerd1]

Chroma is how different a color is from a gray of the same lightness. Saturation is how free from whitishness a color is. It's helpful to think about how a "deep" color can be low in chroma, but high in saturation. A deep, dark green might be closer to gray (lower chroma) than a bright lime green, but at the same time it can be further from white (higher saturation).

[@soarpurpose]

​@@ColorNerd1would be interested in a video about the "deep" colours in this context. Especially with how pigments like quinacridone magenta & phthalo blue can be very dark out of the tube. So deep but not a shade? As shade is supposed to be adding black. Also not reaching full chroma until "diluted"? So not following the "a tint is adding white".

[@ColorNerd1]

@soarpurpose such a good video topic 👍

[@soarpurpose]

@@ColorNerd1 especially the saturation vs chroma vs shades vs tints for "deep" pigments. Where chroma apparently increases for a bit when add white. Also interested in whether you consider muting with a complementary a "tone".

[@UliTroyo]

Love your content, and I love it being longer even more.

[@gurinderdeep5149]

5.8. Keep growing !!

[@spoddie]

I bought a Kolormondo Mini(?) based on an earlier video of yours and it sits proudly on my computer monitor. Colour solids/atlas are terribly expense because of the high accuracy but we don't always need that. The problem with colour is that it is three dimensional and that's not easy to represent with something like a colour solid. It frustrates me that artists try to mix paint without this mental structure, knowing how your paint colour is moving around this structure seems absolutely essential. (I owe you a reply about PCCS and Kobayashi)

[@ColorNerd1]

Thanks! I've been digging up info about PCCS, but there are big gaps in what I could find. Interesting to know what you can tell me!

[@spoddie]

@@ColorNerd1 I sent a document to the email address in your YT profile. The email was a bit rushed (>.

[@ColorNerd1]

@@spoddie Thank you so much!!

[@StephenAntKneeBk5]

Excellent presentation. Thank you for posting this.

[@jnart6573]

Fantastic content once again! For me that work with both digital and many traditional media this is invaluable. Your videos has really made me understand color more thoroughly and made me question many "truths" various teachers and KZbins have taught. Thanks! You are mostly teaching how to understand color, but do you know many teories on how to make colors harmonize in a picture? You "debunked" the classical color harmonies like complementary, harmonious etc in one pf the last videos and proposed the character first approach. Is this the teories thst give a more sientific and updated understanding of how to pick colors in a painting amd create harmonies or do you have others as well?

[@ColorNerd1]

I'm still actively researching this area. There are a number of interesting quantitative studies of color harmony; mostly their results defy the traditional approach. Several conclude that value distinctions are way more important than hue combinations to the aesthetic / design value of a color scheme.

[@bclaus0]

I love you. Now do OKLab.

[@OmegaFalcon]

very awesome info!

[@cdroidno8]

So old color theory was like pythagorean tuning in music and the new theory is more like equal temperament. A bunch of rules were generated in history about harmony's "intrinsic properties" when it turns out they were just artifacts of a certain perspective.

[@ericarichardson2983]

Color theory hurts my brain. But I feel like this is helping it hurt my brain less

[@StephenAntKneeBk5]

Perhaps you've answered this in a video. I've just now found your channel, but I'll post the question. How are the color chip books created? We're dealing with inks, paper, albido, photographic and printing... a wonderful accomplishment. I do further research and welcome any pointers. 😼

[@j.weiss1357]

Thank you for this video

[@Lu3849]

Can you recommand me some books concerning color theory? I respect your input and the knowledge you put in this channel thank you a lot .

[@kevinsolie2208]

Also, how about color focused software?

[@ColorNerd1]

Great ones to start with are James Gurney's Color and Light and Todd Casey's Oil Painter's Handbook. If you're not an artist and just want a general color theory / science book I recommend Universal Principles of Color: 100 Key Concepts by Westland and Maggio

[@StellaByLuna]

I've been wondering, why in perceptual spaces is there so much area allocated to green and chartreuse? Intuitively I would expect a hue change of 30 degrees to seem equally dramatic regardless of where that 30 degree wedge was placed on the color wheel. Is perceived hue contrast all cultural?

[@elysificated]

Early in the video it seems like vivid-ness and chroma are synonyms (distance from grey)? Later you introduced Roy Burns approach which defines vivid-ness in a different way (distance from black). Do I have that right?

[@ColorNerd1]

That's basically right. "Vivid" as a general term indicates high chroma, and that is how it is used in the ISCC-NBS naming system. Roy Berns introduced "vividness" as a perceptual dimension, but his way of thinking has not gained wide acceptance. His "vividness" in fact is basically the inverse of "blackness" in the NCS system (yet another way of charting hue planes!)

[@soarpurpose]

Where did you get your cardboard model? Is there a compact, affordable one designed which takes into differences in hue planes? Do you think the Munsell hue circle or RGB/CMY hue circle is more applicable for both paints and textiles? I see they approximate each other & Munsell labelled magenta as red-purple. I also think this was one of your best videos. A bit more information on something I am interested in.

[@ColorNerd1]

Munsell is better if your goal is true perceptual differences - for example, visual complements, or even intervals between hues. The cardboard model is by Kolormondo, it's affordable. I don't know of a decent "munsell" model unfortunately. On the lookout!

[@soarpurpose]

@ColorNerd1 I have ordered a Kolormondo mini, as it looks useful. I have never actually owned a colour wheel as I've mixed my own. I specialise in acrylics painting but I am also interested in colour analysis (how fabric colours interact with colouring of people). I think a "seasonal" approach is too rigid & based on Itten's outdated palettes. Although more recent takes are borrowing from Munsell's ideas. I have noticed colour charts from Munsell & others have dull yellows etc. Not sure if there is a colour atlas of available fabric colours.

[@spoddie]

@@ColorNerd1 Nihonsikikenjigyo has colour solids available on Amazon Japan, I'm not sure if they ship overseas. There is a small Munsell for 35,000yen, a larger one for 100,000yen. They also have 2 versions of the PCCS model, so be careful which you order. I think searching for "Japan Color Research Institute Color 3D Model" in English will get it. Also they have packs of colour cards which are quite affordable.

[@soarpurpose]

@@ColorNerd1 the Kolomondo arrived. It's very clever. However, I think the "blue" is more violet than my ultramarine blue paint plus the blue made from a prism plus digital blue.

[@ColorNerd1]

@@soarpurpose I don't disagree; it's a very "CMYK" derived "blue." in that my assumption is its 100% Cyan ink + 100% Magenta ink, which is definitely not going to match any colorimetric standard for the complement of yellow ;) I do find the kolormondo immensely useful in the classroom, regardless

[@cartoontalk4568]

Got any thoughts on the mixbox algorithm that allows for natural color mixing on rbg space? *edit Excellent video by the way!

[@ColorNerd1]

Thanks - Yeah, I like it a lot, more for the insights it can give us about how pigments work than for, like, actually digitally painting with. If you haven't played with Max Bo's excellent "Hello Mixbox" online, it's got some great visualizations of the mixing paths between pigments the algorithm models.

[@therealdrawingpathos]

Awesome video! Very valuable information. Have you heard of Harald Kueppers "The Basic Law of Color Theory"? Also, where can I get a hooded sweatshirt like that?

[@ColorNerd1]

Haha. Yes, I love Kueppers' book - lots of great teaching ideas in it.

[@Frostbiker]

I am still quite confused by real-world pigments and how to build a sensible (acrylic) palette that maximizes color gamut. I get that in order to maximize the (potential) chroma of your mixes you want to combine the two primaries in your palette that are closest in hue to your target color. But which pigments should you choose when building a palette with N primaries? E.g. if you have quinacridone magenta and ultramarine blue, how much more gamut (if any) can you get by adding e.g. dioxazine violet or cobalt violet? They have very different lightness.

[@ColorNerd1]

One thing to keep in mind is the chroma of a transparent or semitransparent pigment, out of the tube, is usually not as high as when mixed with a bit of white; this is especially apparent with dark transparent pigments like the ones you mention (PB29, PV23, PR122). Often you want those dark tranparents on your palette because when mixed they maximize chroma, even though they alone are not highly chromatic. So really the question is, is PV23+white going to be higher chroma than PB29+PR122+white. I don't know the answer off the top of my head - but I hope that helps!

[@gary313]

Isn't each square on a "hue plane" made from various hues on the palette, not just one hue with black or white? If this is true, should each plane be called a "hue plane?"

[@ColorNerd1]

I think what you're asking is whether it takes multiple pigments to actually create swatches that are all of constant hue. Because of the way pigment mixtures curve through color space, yes, this is actually true. You can't just grab say, quinacridone magenta, black and white and mix them in different proportions to get a plane of constant hue, because quin magenta shifts toward purple in tints. This is why it took so much careful R&D At the Munsell company early in the twentieth century to actually develop their constant hue pages. It's so important not to confuse colorants with colors - constant hue (a perceptual definition) can't be defined by what a given pigment does - rather, it must be defined by what our eye sees. Hope that helps.

[@J316-u1n]

Ohhhh. El color es demasiado complicado. Como podemos obtener o realizar algo asi ( hue circle and planes for each color)con nuestros colores para ir aprendiendo do de estamos parados y como movernos, dentro de esta esfera o lo que sea?

[@yay-cat]

instead of a colour sphere can’t we have a colour blob? like it maybe pokes out a bit more at green or whatever. or like can’t we make a 5 dimensional model on a computer? this whole thing reminds me of phon lines in acoustics. lines of equal loudness. like sounds that subjectively sound equally loud vary for the different frequencies and the shape isn’t an elegant curve it’s a squiggle. Like as humans we keep trying to force natural phenomena to neat geometries but like our eyes and ears have been tuned or evolved over centuries or millennia and are specific to our sun and planet as well as being a human (in how the munsel chart for dogs would be a much smaller book)

[@ooqui]

I'm not sure if "hue plane" is the correct name for the phenomenon you're presenting. In trichromacy hue cannot be arranged on a plane because it's always 1-dimensional. Yes, hue can vary in saturation and luminosity, but hues themselves stay the same. In tetrachromacy there's actually a _hue plane,_ because hues in tetrachromacy are fundamentally 2-dimensional. I have a form of tetrachromacy and I know what a hue plane really looks like. What you're describing is more like combinations/intersections of hue-saturation and hue-luminsoity planes, but not _hue planes._ I understand that you're using "hue plane" in the context of trichromacy, but to me it's confusing to see that term used when keeping in mind what an actual 2D (tetrachromatic) *hue plane* looks like.

[@flof8992]

Can you link sources to roy burns work? I only find vilains from whatever horror movie... 😅

[@ColorNerd1]

The paper where he introduces vivdness and depth is behind a paywall unfortunately: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/col.21833

[@tyesamson]

​@@ColorNerd1Thank you for sharing this paper! (And thank you to @flof8992 for asking!) Have you considered curating an index of research and white papers of significance to colour? (I do not apologise for the U 🤗) I love your videos a lot but always crave a more technical deep dive but sometimes find it hard to track down original sources with Google. Thank you 🙏

[@tyesamson]

​@@ColorNerd1Hi Pete... long term fan. i tried to reply to this comment but it's been auto -filtered for some reason. If you have a spare moment, would you mind unblocking it? It was wholesome, I promise 🤗

[@ColorNerd1]

@@tyesamson I don't see any comments in "held for review" sorry

[@tyesamson]

​@@ColorNerd1 Oh, that's frustrating, but thank you for replying! I was thanking you for linking to the paper (and @flof8992 for asking you to!) and wondering if you had considered curating an index of research and white papers relevant to the field. I love your videos a lot, but they often end with me craving a more technical deep dive and it can sometimes be difficult to find original sources with only Google :)

[@annalisaperna700]

oh ok nvm i fixed it sorry 4 being dramatic, first time encountering a voicover like that in the wild

[@vladalex9556]

you should make a video with a very catchy and controversial title and thumbnail, like title "red yellow and blue arent primar" and a thumbnail showing that and a caption saying they lied. It could potentially go viral

[@annalisaperna700]

WHY IS THIS IN ITALIAN IDK IF ITS A BAD AI JOB BUT I DONT LIKE IT

[@kamilmaras8324]

kzbin.infoq6l2-l9e50o?si=vG7tBCc8O_MReQPD Hi I want to make this experiment to my school. Can you talk me how you made and what I need to do this. Can you send me a link to buy this type of flashlight. Thank you so much for your help. You make amazing work about light.

[@ColorNerd1]

You can find them here - maggiemaggio.com/color/product/rgbw-flashlights/