Chromaticity

For the album by Tony MacAlpine, see Chromaticity (album).
The CIE 1931 xy chromaticity space, also showing the chromaticities of black-body light sources of various temperatures, and lines of constant correlated color temperature
3D Chromaticity Diagram of the WideGamutRGB color space
3D chromaticity diagram of the WideGamutRGB color space

Chromaticity is an objective specification of the quality of a color regardless of its luminance. Chromaticity consists of two independent parameters, often specified as hue (h) and colorfulness (s), where the latter is alternatively called saturation, chroma, intensity,[1] or excitation purity.[2][3] This number of parameters follows from trichromacy of vision of most humans, which is assumed by most models in color science.

  1. ^ In modern terminology the word "intensity" may refer to lightness, not to colorfulness.
  2. ^ Emil Wolf (1961). Progress in Optics. North Holland Pub. Co.
  3. ^ Leslie D. Stroebel, Richard D. Zakia (1993). The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. Focal Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-240-51417-8. chromaticity hue saturation chroma colorfulness purity.