Easy Tips to Understand Color in Photography with Examples

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Discover easy tips to understand color in photography and how to use it as an important step before editing a photo. The way we use colors in photography may become a factor of indecision and frustration. Will there be one dominant color or more? Should the colors be bright and bold, dark and dense, or soft and pastel? Could the background function as a contrast to or by the main color of the theme? Identical compositions may look completely different when using different color palettes and hues.

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Understanding Color in Photography with Examples

As photographer Wayne Turner writes in one of his interesting articles, Understanding Color in Photography, we think and feel with colors. That’s why only the appropriate color utilization can capture the viewer‘s attention.

Whether you take color decisions subconsciously or strategically, based on tutorials or courses you have taken, the dynamic relationship of colors in a photo composition can be achieved in different ways.

What Is Color in Photography?

Firstly, colors are created from the component of light that is separated when it is reflected off an object. They begin with the wavelength characteristics of the light source and the surface it bounces from. The wavelengths of reflected light determine what color we perceive, making color a three-dimensional attribute defined by hue, value, and saturation.

Color has three fundamental properties:

Hue: the name of the color (red, yellow, green, etc.).
Value: the lightness or darkness of a hue.
Saturation: the intensity or purity of a color, indicating how much gray is mixed in.

Colors were not available in photography from its beginning. In 1861, Scottish mathematical physicist James Clerk Maxwell produced the earliest color photograph, an image of a tartan ribbon. He photographed it three times through red, blue, and yellow filters, then recombined the images into one color composite.

By James Clerk Maxwell – Scanned from The Illustrated History of Colour Photography, Jack H. Coote, 1993. ISBN 0-86343-380-4., Public Domain

Primary Colors in Photography

There are two main ways to understand color in photography: subtractive color and additive color. Light reflecting off surfaces uses traditional primaries red, yellow, and blue (RYB) to mix pigments or inks. In pigment-based or subtractive contexts like print media and traditional art, the primary colors are often considered red, yellow, and blue (RYB), from which all other hues can be mixed.

On the other hand, light-emitting sources such as monitors and digital displays use red, green, and blue (RGB). So, in digital photography and on screens, the additive primary colors are red, green, and blue (RGB). Cameras and our eyes both perceive color through these three channels, which combine to form the full spectrum.

Complementary Colors in Photography

Complementary colors are pairs of hues directly opposite each other on the color wheel. When used together, they reinforce each other’s brightness and create striking, high-contrast visuals that naturally draw the viewer’s attention.

Common complementary pairs include:

Red and green that includes yellow and blue
Yellow and purple that includes blue and red
Blue and orange that includes yellow and red

How to Use Color in Photography

According to color psychology, colors can carry specific meanings, and the perception of color can cause evaluations automatically by the person perceiving. The colors in nature attract, distract, or divert attention. So, the successful usage of colors is the key to elevating the artistic expression through photography.

Employ Complementary Pairings

Employ opposite hues on the color wheel to add depth and visual tension, for example, red against green, blue against orange, and yellow against purple. For example, a sunset photograph with a vibrant orange sky paired against deep blue water can guide the viewer’s eye seamlessly across the frame, highlighting both elements equally.

Practice with different color schemes

There are many different color schemes to practice. You can use monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split-complementary, triadic, square, and rectangular (tetradic) to create visually appealing compositions.

Leverage Warm Versus Cool Colors

Adjust white balance settings or manually tweak color temperature to warm up or cool down your images for a creative effect. Warm hues like red, orange, or yellow feel active and emotionally charged, while cool hues such as green, blue, or violet convey calm and serenity.

Use a Dominant Color

Use a dominant color to direct the viewer’s gaze and simplify your scene, isolating a subject against a background that contrasts or harmonizes with that hue.

Screen Brightness

Calibrate your monitor and edit in controlled lighting to ensure color accuracy from camera through to final output. Although there is no definitive answer for the perfect monitor brightness, experts recommend setting your screen brightness to somewhere between 50% and 75%. This will give you enough light to see clearly without causing too much strain on your eyes.