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Incolor theory, atint is a mixture of a color withwhite, which increaseslightness, while ashade is a mixture withblack, which increasesdarkness. Atone is produced either by mixing a color withgray, or by both tinting and shading.[1] Mixing a color with anyneutral color (black, gray, and white) reduces thechroma, orcolorfulness, while the perceivedhue can be affected slightly (seeAbney effect andBezold-Brücke shift).
In thegraphic arts, especiallyprintmaking anddrawing, "tone" has a different meaning, referring to areas of continuous color, produced by various means, as opposed to the linear marks made by anengraved or drawn line.
In common language, the termshade can be generalized to encompass any varieties of a particular color, whether technically they are shades, tints, tones, or slightly different hues.[2] Meanwhile, the termtint can be generalized to refer to any lighter or darker variation of a color (e.g. "tinted windows").[3]
When mixing colored light (additive color models), the achromatic mixture of spectrally balanced red, green, and blue (RGB) is always white, not gray or black. In colorants, such as thepigments inpaint mixtures, a balanced mixture acomplementaries, or a balanced mixture of three or more colors, will result in a color that is darker and lower in chroma and saturation, than the parent colors. This moves the mixed color toward a neutral color—a gray or near-black.
The Color Triangle depicting tint, shade, and tone was proposed in 1937 byFaber Birren.[4]
It is common among some artistic painters to darken a paint color by adding black paint—producing colors calledshades—or to lighten a color by adding white—producing colors calledtints. However, this is not always the best way for representational painting, since one result is for colors to also shift in their hues. For instance, darkening a color by adding black can cause hue shifts towardsrose orgreen (seeBezold-Brücke shift). Lightening a color by adding white can cause even more noticeable hue shifts (seeAbney effect). Another practice when darkening a color is to use its opposite, or complementary, color (e.g. violet-purple added to yellowish-green) in order to neutralize it. When lightening a color this hue shift can be corrected with the addition of a small amount of an adjacent color to bring the hue of the mixture back in line with the parent color (e.g. adding a small amount of orange to a mixture of red and white will correct the shift of this mixture towards pink, that is, it will correct the Abney effect).
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