Is Grey A Tint A Shade Or A Tone?

To me black is black, white is white and gray is everything in between. My habit is to refer to different values of gray as "shades" of gray. I guess occasionally I'll say tones, I believe either is correct. I've never heard anyone say "tints" of gray but I supposed technically it wouldn't be wrong since a tint is anything with white added therefore it could be said that gray is white added to black therefore tints, but then a shade is anything with black added therefore grays are shades of white. I don't believe it's technically wrong to say it either way.

Gray is created by mixing black and white.
Adding white to a color creates a tint. Adding black, creates a shade. Adding gray , creates a tone


Gray can only be a color but it is used to tone.

if its found as a crayon, then its a color.

so there you go.

transparent isn't a color.


but it depends on what the medium is, and grey can be made with other colors, just mix playdough to find that out. i don't think there are any winners in that argument, it can go both ways depending on what your talking about. if the image is a monochrome, and there is no color, then its a tint. otherwise, if its a painting, and you buy a tube of gray - its a color. you don't tint the mouse gray.

---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Not true, Mike

White and black are found in crayons but aren't colours

Then there's color theory for light, where black is no color and white is all color....
Then there's color theory for ink jet printing.....
Why do I want to ask "whose on first?"

Then there is color and colour....

everything is a color. white is color, it doesn't do much on white paper, same with black. when you order a black car, you ask for a black color, you don't ask for a tint, because that's totally different. you use black paint, but not a tint. if your doing oil painting you may have a black tint, but that's a tint, a transparent burn in of an area, using thinned black paint. but its still a color. but then you get into shades of black and so on, that's where it gets more confusing.

UV isn't really a color, its a wavelength, and the color changes depending what hits it.

i suppose if we broke this down to a scientific level, all colors are a wavelength of some kind, and can all be measured on a spectrometer... and that's when you step out, to go to your car and pull out your spectrometer. because until now, you could never get it to fit into a conversation.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Here's one that I learned in art school a million years ago: White is the absence of color, black is a mix of all colors. I don't recall being taught about what gray/grey is, but I would say it's a shade of black. I would not classify gray as a tint.

If you're a physicist you'll get one answer, and if you're an artist you'll get another. A photographer may talk about "grayscale". A decorator may say it's a neutral color.

A tint is a transparent color...think of sunglass lenses tinted blue, green, pink, etc.

I think there are around 50 shades of gray.

There is no "true" answer - since all colors are mixes of color or the absence of color. There are shades of every color - and you can tint almost any color with another color. Gray/grey - depending on where you are from - is a shade - you could tint another color with it or you could put it down as a color. If you were painting a cape you would mix colors to give you that shade by tinting a color with another.

But, very seriously, this is all much ado about nothing. Outer space is black - it is an absence of color - when you begin adding light - you get shades of blue which we see in our atmosphere - unless you are colorblind - then you might see green or just gray. LOL

Not all colors are mixes of colors. You still have to include the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue in the overall group of colors. They are the starting point from which all colors can be made.

I'm just wondering if it's at all necessary to over think everything, or if it's just the thing to do here?

I have to agree with Mike here.

I have customers ask me all the time to paint something and I ask them "what color do you want me to paint it"?, they say white, black and gray all the time, and they pay me, it would not occur to me to say, just a minute now, white is not a color. :-)

Ok Joy - that is what I was trying to say - Except for Blue, yellow and red.

This is still a pointless conversation that makes absolutely no difference to an artist

I'm not sure what they've been telling the docents at this particular museum -- perhaps what the docents have been told is specific to some aspect of the exhibit that is currently on display -- context could matter.

Here is what Dictionary.com provides as a definition for the word "tint."

Tint: noun
1. a color or a variety of a color; hue.
2. a color diluted with white; a color of less than maximum purity, chromo, or saturation.
3. a delicate or pale color.
4. any of various commercial dyes for the hair.
5. Engraving. a uniform shading, as that produced by a series of fine parallel lines.
6. Also called tint block. Printing. a faintly or lightly colored background upon which an illustration or the like is to be printed.
verb (used with object)
7. to apply a tint or tints to; color slightly or delicately; tinge.

And the relevant part of the dictionary.com definition of "gray":

Gray: noun
9. any achromatic color; any color with zero chroma, intermediate between white and black.
10. something of this color.
11. gray material or clothing: to dress in gray.

********
As far as mixing colors, there is an almost infinite variety of grays.
You can get different grays by mixing the following colors, in various proportions, and it is possible that there are additional ways to get gray, as well.

(a) black and white

(b) compliments (red mixed with green; blue mixed with orange; yellow mixed with purple). This process does not necessarily yield gray, if there is much in the way of identifiable chroma (or color) in the resulting color mixture. You would need to mix the compliments in proportions that basically cause the colors to cancel each other out. We could probably argue either way about whether mixing complimentary colors can actually produce gray... but you can come very close.


You can add a small amount of gray to just about any color and tint that color gray.

If you mix all your paint colors you do not get black. You get a gray at best.

If you mix all the colors of light, the rainbow from a prism, you get white light. Quite different from paints, inks, dyes, etc. which is reflected light.

But if a grey tree falls in a forest with no one there to see it, what color is it?

This is the wiki definition, and closest to what I have always understood it to be from the books I have read on the matter.

"In color theory, a tint is the mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is the mixture of a color with black, which reduces lightness. A tone is produced either by the mixture of a color with gray, or by both tinting and shading."

You use white to tint, you use black to shade, and you use gray to tone. So I think the closest answer would be tone.

When I was a little kid, maybe 3 or 4, I was forced to study the color grey. It was probably the first color I gave much thought to.

I was told that black and white, pure black and pure white make grey and with the addition of small amounts of color many different shades of grey will be produced, but will still remain in the grey family of color. I can remember my mom telling me she didn't care how many colors of grey I could count; I was not permitted to get out of bed until I saw at least one color that wasn't grey.

Apparently I was a very early riser!

grey is the sum of two compliments.

Gray is the guy who put together that anatomy book

If I see everything in gray, and in gray all the colors which I experience and which I would like to reproduce, then why should I use any other color? I've tried doing so, for it was never my intention to paint only with gray. But in the course of my work I have eliminated one color after another, and what has remained is gray, gray, gray! (Alberto Giacometti)

Technically, outside the art world, White consists of all colors while black is no colors at all.

Then there is the old phrase, "Not everything is Black and White"... referring to the two extremes for the sake of clarity.

Or you could refer to the old joke of the newspaper being Black and White, and Read all over.

So much of what we say in the English language depends on the context in which it is used, it's no wonder they say it's one of the most difficult languages to learn.

I also admit that I'm a bit surprised, especially from an art website, that I've never noticed a single artist or photographer use the term "grayscale", but always mistakenly use the term, "Black and White". The term "Black and White" should be used only for images that only display black and white whereas the term, "Grayscale" is a range of shades of gray without apparent color. The darkest possible shade is black, which is the total absence of transmitted or reflected light. The lightest possible shade is white, the total transmission or reflection of light at all visible wavelength.

I use the term, grayscale even though my "old" spell checker never recognizes the word, unless I need to abbreviate it for say the sake of a file name. Then I usually type BW as a general abbreviation for the sake of space.

If you are mixing paints in a hardware store, anything you put into the raw paint is a tint.

That said greys are tones.

If you dissect a color the black and white in the color, the gray, is the tone.

Also shadows create shades in my mind. As well as there being shades of colors.

A shadow shot by a digital color will have some blue very often. Not a pure gray.

There are different shades of grey.

Really the whole thing boils down to usage.

Dave

As long someone understands your meaning it shouldn't matter, it's normal in conversation, to use terms pertaining to colour, that are not that precise. Someone posted a question here recently asking about: warm and cool 'tones', no one batted an eye. Colour theory on the other hand, does require more precise use of language, unfortunately your average practicing artist's knowledge of such, is more akin to a bunch of ill informed, half baked notions clattering around inside their little head, than any genuine insight into the topic. As such, it's not uncommon to encounter a few reoccurring ejaculations upon the topic, -black is not a colour- probably being the most common amongst these.

Here is a nize website explaining light in layman'z termz.
http://idahoptv.org/sciencetrek/topics/light_and_color/facts.cfm

"Why do I want to ask "whose on first?"

Marlene, you beat me to the punch. :)


I tend to think of everything as a "shade"................I'm partially color blind. Or as I refer to it, "shade discriminate".

Greg, hehe.
This discussion will always produce a zillion opinions because paint color mixing ( even in oil and acrylic) is vastly different from chemical color mixing for printing and color physics for light.
oh wait, I already said that a long time ago!

BTW, when I was transitioned from oil to acrylic paint, I was only nallowed to use one color and added one a month...first color up was the oh so lovable payne's gray......still my go to gray of choice.


For some interesting info, look up whistler's Mother and find out the real name of it and then I'll tell you what it looks like and how it was painted...it is fascinating.

I'm happy to observe that nobody has yet to throw shade in this thread!

Well, here ya go. Photoshop #505050 - supposedly the 50th "Shade" of Gray - according to this popular photo editing software. LOL





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~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com
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Greg M:

Your conversation with the docent at the museum, about the taxonomy of gray...

Did it have anything to do with the exhibit (does context matter?) or was it a conversation that had nothing in particular to do with the exhibit?

Try explaining to a 4yr, who is coloring that Black and White aren't colors ;)

@Bill #505050 I once wrote a script to work through all possible screen colours, and another for all greys. Made me think a lot more about mixing colours, independent of medium.

A docent said this....basically, a docent is a volunteer who takes a course in museum details....there's no reason to think they are authorities in all matters art.

"At the Art museum today I said Grey was a Color but said no I mean it's a shade."

Greg,

Grey is a color, there are shades of grey. Every shade of grey is a different color.

Tints go into a color to get another color.

Dissecting a color, or analyzing a color, you find its tone. Tones are based on greys. Taking a basic hue and changing its tone creates still more colors.

KISS if you can,

Dave

"Grey is a color, there are shades of grey. Every shade of grey is a different color.

Tints go into a color to get another color." 

Dave,

Yep, I know that. Quite a few years ago, in between my Navy and high school teaching careers, I was a department manager of the paint dept at a Big Box home improvement store. Those computers can work wonders when mixing and selling paint. Had lots of customers ask me what I thought of different shades and colors of stuff they were doing in their homes. My response was usually, "it looks fine to me, but you're the one that will have to see it everyday." Mixed and sold gallons and gallons of "custom" colors, thanks to that paint mixing/matching computer. :)

I did much better as the tool and hardware manager. No colors to contend with, although my primary colors for my personal power tools are yellow and orange (DeWalt and Husqvarna). :)

Greg Jackson,

I was address the Greg OP.

But....I like your story......of the box store.

I worked in a very old fashioned New England hardware store in West Hartford CT through college back in the late 1980s.

We had standing orders, "tell any customer buying paint that we give out no advice on the color at all ever". The reason is paint comes back at the store all the time. People do not like the color and want a refund. If I ever even smirked the owners would be under the gun to give a refund.

Similar thing with electrical, but that was about the liability of those old homes in the neighborhood.

Tool and hardware, we ran in the black just before Thanksgiving. I was in my twenties, but we had two older guys who wanted part time jobs. I have a keen memory of one of them in the basement during the Christmas rush mumbling to me, "is this Black and Decker power screwdriver any good?". I said NO, it is a piece of crap, but sell it anyway. So he kind of limped up the stairs, bad back, and sold it.

A few days later the boss came over to me in front of a the new ceramic space heaters and said he believed in the heaters as a new product. I said to him, "I sell this crap". He smiled and went a way. I was always the pisser. LOL But I was hardly the only one.


Dave

My mother said to never ask a question like that to a woman over 40!

Here are the definitions for the words from the Oxford Dictionary. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer much help.

TONE:
The particular quality of brightness, deepness, or hue of a shade of a colour.
‘stained glass in vivid tones of red and blue’
mass noun ‘an attractive colour which is even in tone and texture’

SHADE:
A colour, especially with regard to how light or dark it is or as distinguished from one nearly like it.
‘various shades of blue’
mass noun ‘Maria's eyes darkened in shade’

In Art: A slight degree of difference between colours.

TINT:
A shade or variety of a colour.
‘the sky was taking on an apricot tint’

"I was address the Greg OP."


Oops. Maybe we should start using last initials after the first name also. Kind of like all the "Daves" we have around here, where there always seems to be at least one in every thread. :)


Working retail (imo) is pretty much a thankless job, and takes a certain type to deal with it on a daily basis year after year. It wasn't for me, and I went on to other pursuits. :)

These are fun,

http://brainden.com/color-illusions.htm

according to the international value scale level 5 down to level 1 have mostly black in them so they are shades.

Gray is a controversial subject

its a science so facts are facts

Facts change all of the time. Remember that before going dogmatic. Everyone is correct. This is a gray area. Amen, Marlene.

So do we have 50 opinions of gray yet?
Soon, we can write a book and make it into a movie!

All I know is that the grey made by mixing oppositez looks more pleasing than black plus white and black mixed with color to create the darker areaz look better than black alone.

Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 is commonly called whistler's Mother. For any of you who have had the thrill to see it in person, you will know that all the grays were mixed from complementary colors....when you look at it close up, you understand the brilliance of the piece....as soon as you step back, it all turns to shades of gray.

Now you're getting into the alchemical secretz Marlene! I'm going to have to call a meeting of The Council of Thirteen!