The Munsell system is a way to describe colours, using three different
parameters: hue, value and chroma.
Hue. This is the
quality which defines colour, based on the colour circle divided in 10 different hues: five
principal and five
intermediate hues. Each hue is then divided into 10 divisions, in which number 5 is the pure hue and the low and high numbers implying a colour close to the adjacent colour in the colour circle.
Value. The value of a colour describes the
lightness or
darkness of a given colour: lower values are the darker colours and the higher ones contain more white. The
scale ranges from 0 (black) to 10 (white).
Chroma. The
chroma of a given object tells us to what extend a colour is greyed out. A low number represents a colour containing a lot of grey, and higher numbers a more pure colour. There is no
maximum set on the chroma-
scale, as different colours reach their brightest
intensity at different levels (e.g. the maximum chroma for blue is 12).
Example:
The numbers of the three
parameters
combined describe the overall colour of an object. This is notated in the following
format: hue value/chroma, i.e. 5.0Y 5/6 =
5.0Y = a pure yellow
5/ = In the middle of the grey scale
/6 = a yellow that still contains a lot of grey, as the chroma-scale for yellow is up to about 14.
The general
description of this "5.0Y 5/6" is a darker, greyed out yellow, which more looks like a light brown.
Back to
color theory.