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Everything about Colorfulness

Perceived intensity of a specific color

Colorfulness, chroma and saturation are attributes of perceived color relating to chromatic intensity. As defined formally by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) they respectively describe three different aspects of chromatic intensity, but the terms are often used loosely and interchangeably in contexts where these aspects are not clearly distinguished. The precise meanings of the terms vary by what other functions they are dependent on.Colorfulness is the "attribute of a visual perception according to which the perceived color of an area appears to be more or less chromatic ". The colorfulness evoked by an object depends not only on its spectral reflectance but also on the strength of the illumination, and increases with the latter unless the brightness is very high. Chroma is the "colorfulness of an area judged as a proportion of the brightness of a similarly illuminated area that appears white or highly transmitting". As a result, chroma is mostly only dependent on the spectral properties, and as such is seen to describe the object color. It is how different from a grey of the same lightness such an object color appears to be. Saturation is the "colorfulness of an area judged in proportion to its brightness", which in effect is the perceived freedom from whitishness of the light coming from the area. An object with a given spectral reflectance exhibits approximately constant saturation for all levels of illumination, unless the brightness is very high. Wikipedia →

🧭 Start here: a 6-step reading path

  1. Read the overview: ColorfulnessA 5-minute orientation
  2. Skim a recent paper: Colorfulness influences perceptions of valence and arousal.Influential work since 2022
  3. Pick up a classic book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?The most-reprinted book on the subject
  4. Read the landmark paper: Visual attractiveness depends on colorfulness and color contrasts in mixed saladsCited 79 times
  5. Go sideways: CIECAM02A closely related topic
  6. Go sideways: LightnessA closely related topic

📖 Definitions

Noun The state of being colorful.

Noun The perceived intensity of a specific color.

🗂️ The subject at a glance

  1. Chroma
  2. Saturation
  3. Excitation purity

🏆 Landmark papers (most cited)

🆕 Influential since 2022

📚 Books worth reading

Ranked by number of editions on Open Library, a rough measure of how lasting a book is.

🔗 Related topics