Tinting Basics (Mixing Colors) - Basic Color Features
1. Basic Color Features

Light and Colors:
While a very wide spectrum of light rays come from the sun, human eyes can only see the visible rays within a wavelength range of 380 to 780 nanometers (nm). Light rays with wavelengths shorter than 380 nm are called ultraviolet rays. These cause deterioration of paint layers and fade colors. Light rays with wavelengths longer than 780 nm are called infrared rays. Beyond that with even longer wavelengths are far-infrared rays. Both infrared and far-infrared rays are called heat rays. These are often used for the heat sources of paint dryers and room heaters.
Visible rays in the sunlight look white. When sunlight is passed through a prism, the visible rays become a spectrum of different colors ranging from red to violet.
When a visible light ray hits an object and is reflected, the light ray reaches the human eye and its color is recognized. If only long wavelength light rays are reflected, the color is recognized as red. And if only short wavelength light rays are reflected, the color is recognized as blue.
Colors can be generally divided into two groups, chromatic colors and non-chromatic colors.
Chromatic colors: Red/Blue/Yellow: colors that have hue or tint.
Non-chromatic colors: White/Gray/Black: colors that have no hue or tint.




Three Factors of Colors

A chromatic color is comprised of three factors: Hue, Value, and Chroma Non-chromatic colors have only one value: Brightness
Hue: The feature that characterizes each color like red, blue, yellow, and green.
Value: The degree of brightness.
Chroma: The degree of freshness, apart from the degrees of hue and value.




Munsell’s color ring
Indication of Colors

Hue Ring
Hue Ring is a ring shaped relative arrangement of ten main colors. There are five main colors: Red (R), Yellow (Y), Green (G), Blue (B), and purple (P). Another 5 colors are relatively placed between the main colors: Yellow red (YR), Yellow green (GY), Blue green (BG), Blue purple (BP), Red purple (RP). Each hue is divided into 4 even spaces with an interval of 2.5 and the center is shown at 5.





Munsell color system
Munsell color system

Munsell Color System is a color measurement system introduced by Albert H. Munsell, an American an artist and professor (1858-1918). In this system, colors are measured in the three dimensions of Hue, Value, and Chroma. Munsell published the 1st edition of Munsell Atlas of Color in 1915. Then he later revised it a few times, and in 1943, he introduced the revised color system that is still used.

Indicated Code (Munsell Code)
Non-chromatic colors are indicated in N. Chromatic colors are designated in the order of hue, value and chroma.

Example: N-3
5R 4/10
where:
5R: Hue; 4: Value; 10: Chroma

Accurate paint color mixing cannot be attained using only the Munsell code. Always use actual color samples.
Complementary Color:
In the Hue Ring, the two colors located directly opposite from each other are termed as complementary colors. If red and blue green, or yellow and blue purple are mixed in an appropriate ratio, they turn out to be a non- chromatic color.
It is possible to use the relationship of complementary colors in order to weaken a color’s degree of the hue. This can be done by adding a small amount of its complementary color. Because the color may become slightly muddy or hard to return to original, this is not recommended.