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Designed by Michel Albert-Vanel in 1983, this is a new breed of colour system that allows for effects of colour perception. Arguably, colours are not abstract concepts, but real sensations; they tend to be seen in groups of two or more, not in isolation.
Thus, effects like simultaneous contrast can change a colour's appearance. Other factors to be considered are lighting, texture, and even size.
New parameters are added to describe the context in which a colour is seen. These fall into three groups:
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Chromacity - the conventional scales of hue, value and saturation of single colours.
Contrast - three new scales which describe groups / mixtures of colours: one for hue, stretching from monochrome (zero contrast) to polychrome (full contrast); and one each for value and saturation, similarly stretching from flat colour to complex colour (as in a dappled surface).
Material - three further scales: from the active (light) to passive (pigment); from transparency to opacity; and from matte to glossy. Any three scales can be used as the axes of a colour solid. This system can be used to map colour in complex colour impressions such as paintings, landscapes, or architecture. An infinite number of colours can be plotted simultaneously, although in practice the eye can only see about twenty colours at a time.
Albert-Vanel represents the system as spinning planets in primary colours, orbited by moons of secondary colours.
References
HOPE, A & WALCH, M (1990) The Color Compendium. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
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Copyright © 2004 Micro Academy.
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