Hue is what we think of as color is equal to the ratio of each primary (RGB) color to the other. The hue determines which basic color it is. Red, green, blue, yellow, orange, etc. A hue is referenced by an angle on a color wheel.
Color Space
An understanding of color space can help you enhance the quality of your images. In this article we will review three that are commonly used in digital imaging, RGB, HSL and HSV.
Let’s start with a color space that we are all familiar with, the RYB color wheel of paint we used in grade school. This is a subtractive color space, as more paint pigment is added to the mixture the more light is absorbed and the darker the color becomes, (remember the disappointing dark brown that resulted at the end of our joyous experiments in adding paints together). The primary colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue. The secondary colors are purple (a mixture of blue and red), orange (a mixture of red and yellow), and green (a mixture of yellow and blue). In this color space you start with white light which contains the full spectrum of light. (Recall that passing white light through a prism produces the rainbow spectrum of colors.) The pigment of the paint absorbs a part of the spectrum leaving the part of the spectrum of the paint color.
Graduate to Computers
Computer monitors emit light so computers use a color space that is additive since the pixels are adding light to the spectrum presented to you. This emissive color space is based on the primary colors of light perceived by the eye. They are Red, Green and Blue. The computer monitor has three colors (red, green and blue) that make up each pixel. The intensity of each dot corresponds to the color intensity number stored in the RGB color data for that pixel location. As an additive color space, the more light that is added the brighter the color becomes. Recall that the full spectrum added together makes white light so when all the dots are equally illuminated you get white. It follows that levels of gray are made from equal amounts of red, green, and blue at lower intensities. Equal amounts of red and green are perceived as yellow by the eye, equal amounts of green and blue are perceived as turquoise, and equal amounts of blue and red are perceived as purple.
In digital imaging a color is coded into data as a set of bits for the intensity of Red, a set of bits for the intensity of Green, and a set of bits for the intensity of Blue. The number of bits necessary is dependent on the eye’s ability to distinguish between intensities of the primary colors. Since the human eye can distinguish 200 levels of brightness, 8 bit coding (256 levels) was chosen for full color fidelity. 8 bits per color gives us the 24 bit RGB standard commonly used today. It can represent over 16 million different colors.
A weakness in this format occurs when image enhancement is performed. This weakness stems from data truncation that happens during image processing. Data that starts out as 8 bit per color may end up with only 6 bits worth of data after several calculations. The resulting image may end up with color banding. Color banded images lack smooth transitions across the image. They look like topographical maps with bands of a single color that change abruptly to next color at a distinct border. The solution that avoids this problem is to sample the image at a higher bit depth. This can be accomplished with 30 or 36 bit RGB image capture which correspond to 10 or 12 bits per color. These formats maintain 8 good bits even after 2-4 bits are lost during image processing.
Space for You
As I said earlier, this is an ideal color space for the computer. It is not at all intuitive for humans. Humans think of light as having three distinct aspects: color, intensity of color, and brightness. With the RGB color space, to change color, you need to change the ratio between the Red, Green and Blue. To change the intensity you would have to project the vector of the RGB value toward the largest valued primary color (red, green or blue). If you want to make a color brighter in RGB color space you need to keep the ratios between the Red, Green and Blue the same but increase them. Any of these functions would take some calculation. Realizing this, digital imaging engineers created functions that manipulate the RGB values for you. These functions transform the data into new color spaces that are called HSL and HSV.
The HSL color space has the following functions defined as:
Russian Colors: Pronunciation and Examples
Maia Nikitina is a writer and Russian language translator. She holds a Diploma in Translation (IoLet Level 7) from the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
Updated on November 26, 2019
Russian colors are generally used in the same way as colors in English. However, when it comes to blue, there are two separate blue colors in Russian: голубой (galooBOY)—meaning light blue—, and синий (SEEniy), which encompasses all shades of medium and darker blue.
This distinction is very important in Russian and the two colors (голубой and синий) are each considered to be a separate color that is equal to all other colors.
Colors in Russian
To remember some of the basic Russian colors, use this mnemonic for the colors of the rainbow:
Каждый охотник желает знать, где сидит фазан (KAZHdiy aHOTnik zheLAyet ZNAT’ GDYE siDEET faZAN).
Translation: Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant sits.
The first letter of each word in the mnemonic corresponds to one of the colors of the rainbow:
- каждый – красный (KRASniy) – red
- охотник – оранжевый (aRANzheviy) – orange
- желает – жёлтый (ZHYOLtiy) – yellow
- знать – зелёный (zeLYOniy) – green
- где – голубой (galooBOY) – light blue
- сидит – синий (SEEniy) – blue
- фазан – фиолетовый (fee-a-LYEtaviy) – purple/violet
Below are some more Russian colors you should know:
| Color in Russian | Pronunciation | Translation |
| Красный | KRASniy | Red |
| Синий | SEEniy | Blue (medium to dark) |
| Голубой | galooBOY | Light blue |
| Зелёный | zeLYOniy | Green |
| Жёлтый | ZHYOLtiy | Yellow |
| Оранжевый | aRANzheviy | Orange |
| Фиолетовый | fee-a-LYEtaviy | Violet/purple |
| Салатовый/салатный | saLAtaviy/saLATniy | Chartreuse green |
| Серый | SYEriy | Gray |
| Чёрный | CHYORniy | Black |
| Белый | BYEliy | White |
| Коричневый | kaREECHneviy | Brown |
| Бирюзовый | beeryuZOviy | Turquoise |
| Лимонный | leeMONniy | Lemon yellow |
| Розовый | ROzaviy | Pink |
| Бежевый | BYEzheviy | Beige |
| Бордовый | barDOviy | Burgundy |
| Золотой | zalaTOY | Gold |
| Серебряный | seRYEBreniy | Silver |
| Лиловый | leeLOviy | Lilac |
| Сливовый | sleeVOviy | Plum |
| Васильковый | vaseelKOviy | Cornflower blue |
| Лазурный | laZOORniy | Cerulean blue |
| Малиновый | maLEEnaviy | Alizarin crimson/raspberry |
| Персиковый | PERsikaviy | Peach |
How to Use the Color Words in Russian
Russian colors change their endings based on their gender, number, and case. Although this may seem confusing at first, once you start to use the colors in your speech, you will get used to the endings.
In dictionaries, Russian colors are always given in the masculine form. Use the following endings for each gender and number:
Singular
Masculine:
-ый, -ий
Example: красный (KRASniy) – red
Feminine:
-ая, -яя
Example: красная (KRASnaya) – red
Neuter:
-ое, -ее
Example: красное (KRASnaye) -red
Plural
For all genders:
-ые, -ие
Example: красные (KRASnyye) – red
The table below provides the endings for the main Russian colors.
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural |
| красный | красная | красное | красные |
| синий | синяя | синее | синие |
| жёлтый | жёлтая | жёлтое | жёлтые |
| зелёный | зелёная | зелёное | зелёные |
| оранжевый | оранжевая | оранжевое | оранжевые |
| фиолетовый | фиолетовая | фиолетовое | фиолетовые |
| коричневый | коричневая | коричневое | коричневые |
| чёрный | чёрная | чёрное | чёрные |
| белый | белая | белое | белые |
| серый | серая | серое | серые |
| голубой | голубая | голубое | голубые |
Additionally, Russian colors also change their endings when the nouns that they relate to change case. It is important to learn these correctly if you want to speak Russian like a native speaker.
When the colors change by case, their endings are one of the following, based on whether the last letter before the ending is soft, hard, or mixed:
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
| Nominative | -ий, -ый | -ая, -яя | -ое, -ее |
| Genitive | -его, -ого | -ей, -ой | -его, -ого |
| Dative | -ему, -ому | -ей, -ой | -ему, -ому |
| Accusative | -его (-ий), -ого (-ый) | -ую, -юю | -его (-ее), -ого (-ое) |
| Instrumental | -им, -ым | -ей, -ой | -им, -ым |
| Prepositional | -ем, -ом | -ей, -ой | -ем, -ом |
Here is how the color синий (medium/dark blue) changes by case and gender:
| Case | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
| nominative | синий (SEEniy) | синяя (SEEnaya) | синее (SEEneye) |
| genitive | синего (SEEneva) | синей (SEEney) | синего (SEEneva) |
| dative | синему (SEEnemoo) | синей (SEEney) | синему (SEEnemoo) |
| accusative | синего/синий (SEEneva/SEEniy) | синюю (SEEnyuyu) | синее (SEEneye) |
| instrumental | синим (SEEnim) | синей (SEEney) | синим (SEEnim) |
| prepositional | синем (SEEnem) | синей (SEEney) | синем (SEEnem) |
Examples:
– Красная Шапочка шла по лесу (KRASnaya SHApachka SHLA PO lyesoo)
– The Red Little Riding Hood was walking through the forest.
– У тебя нет красного карандаша? (oo tyBYA net KRASnava karandaSHA)
– Do you have a red pencil?
– Он ехал с Красного моря (on YEhal s KRASnava MOrya)
– He was traveling from the Red Sea.
– Голубое небо (galooBOye NEba)
– A blue sky.
– Юбку мы раскрасим голубым (YUPkoo my rasKRAsim galooBYM)
– We will color the skirt blue.
– Видишь ту голубую машину? (VEEdish too galooBOOyu maSHEEnoo)
– Can you see that light blue car?
– Жёлтый песок (ZHYOLtiy peSOK)
– Yellow sand.
– У нас нет жёлтой лопатки (oo NAS net ZHYOLtai laPATki)
– We don’t have a yellow toy spade.
– Повсюду были жёлтые цветы (paFSYUdoo BYli ZHYOLtye TSVYEty)
– Yellow flowers were everywhere.
– Чёрный экран (CHYORniy ekRAN)
– The/a black screen.
– Где вы видели эту чёрную кошку? (GDYE vy VEEdeli EHtoo CHYORnooyu KOSHku)
– Where did you see this black cat?
– Мы едем на Чёрное море. (my YEdem na CHYORnaye MOre)
– We are going to the Black Sea.
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Nikitina, Maia. “Russian Colors: Pronunciation and Examples.” ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020, thoughtco.com/russian-colors-4776553. Nikitina, Maia. (2020, August 28). Russian Colors: Pronunciation and Examples. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/russian-colors-4776553 Nikitina, Maia. “Russian Colors: Pronunciation and Examples.” ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/russian-colors-4776553 (accessed November 8, 2023).
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