Importance of values

Color has three components: hue, saturation, and value. The value is how light or dark a color is — it describes differences in the intensity of light reflected from a color.

Values are what you see when you take the color out of a photograph, and range from white, through different shades of gray, to black.

Value study example — full color photograph

In the above photograph you can see all the colors.

In the above black and white photograph all you can see are different values.

Measuring values

To measure values, you can use two techniques:

reference points in nature
comparison, using a value finder

Also useful is a black mirror to help you see values more accurately.

Values are important for two reasons:

Realism

Eighty percent of the realism in your painting comes from choosing the correct value.
Of the remaining twenty percent, the majority is probably saturation, not hue.
Therefore when choosing the correct “color,” think mainly about value and saturation.
This is why painters like Matisse can use “wrong” colors when values are right.

Also remember that the human eye can be fooled into thinking a certain color has a lighter or darker value than it actually has.

For example, people tend to think reds and oranges are light, when in fact they have middle values.

Design

Not only do values contribute to realism, they play a major role in the abstract design of your painting.
The arrangement of darks and lights is called <strong>notan</strong>.

Examples

In this painting, the figures are much darker than the background and so the contrast makes the eye focus on them.


Raybould

In the still life painting below, the values give form and shape to the vase and flowers.

In this landscape painting, the lighter values make the scene fade into the distance.

Types of value scale

Value Scales

A value scale is a series of color spots of gradually increasing value. Common value scales are the three, four, five, and nine value scales.

0/1
black2345678910
white

Munsell notation — values

A standard way of describing values is to use the Munsell scale numbers. In the Munsell color system, a value zero is black and a value ten is white.

Approximation

Because it is easier to make a nine value scale (1–9) than an eleven value scale (0–10), we often use just nine values and treat one as black and nine as white.

You can have different numbers of values in a value scale. The scales with only a few values, such as three, four and five, are called limited value scales.

Note: For convenience this course uses one to refer to black and nine to refer to white, even though in the Munsell scale these numbers would refer to “almost black” and “almost white” respectively.

Three value scale

159

Four value scale

1379

Five value scale

13579

Nine value scale

123456789

STEP-BY-STEP: HOW TO CONVERT IMAGES FROM COLOR TO BLACK AND WHITE

To help you see values better, you can take a photograph of a scene and use a computer to convert the image from color to black and white. This will help you see the values in the scene much more clearly.

Adobe Photoshop

Open the image in Photoshop.
Select Image → Mode → Grayscale and click OK.

Other editors

Look for Grayscale or Desaturate under the Colors or Image menu (Affinity Photo, mobile apps, etc.).

Caution — photography vs the human eye: Shadows often appear very dark in photographs because the camera uses one aperture for both shadows and lights, whereas the human eye adjusts when looking at shadows. When painting from photos, compare shadow areas to mid-tones — you may need to lighten shadows.

What Are Values?