1.5

Saturation
Saturation describes the intensity of that color, whether it’s a bright red or a pale red. An
image that is completely desaturated has no color at all and is a grayscale image. Saturation
is also measured on a color wheel, but as the distance from the center of the wheel to
the edge.
As you look at the color wheel, notice that it is a mix of the red, green, and blue primary
colors that make up video. In between these are the yellow, cyan, and magenta secondary
colors, which are equal mixes of the primary colors.
Primary and Secondary Color Relationships Explained
Understanding color wheel interactions will help you to see how the Color controls actually
affect colors in an image.
Primary Colors
In any additive color model, the primary colors are red, green, and blue. These are the
three purest colors that can be represented, by setting a single color channel to 100
percent and the other two color channels to 0 percent.
Secondary Colors
Adding any two primary colors produces a secondary color. In other words, you create a
secondary color by setting any two color channels to 100 percent while setting the third
to 0 percent.
• Red + green = yellow
• Green + blue = cyan
• Blue + red = magenta
One other aspect of the additive color model:
• Red + green + blue = white
32 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics