Section 6 | Page 4

Locating a color in color space is analogous to locating a person in a city using a map with grid coordinates. First, we must know the personÆs address. If one map coordinate corresponds to the street and the other the avenue, we can plot on the map where the person lives. This gives us a location in two dimensions. LetÆs say the person lives on the 12th floor of a high rise building. We can plot where the person lives in a three-dimensional diagram with this information. This is similar to locating a color in color space.

In three-dimensional color space, the center axis represents lightness with white at the top and black at the bottom. Most hues have the greatest possible chroma, or saturation, at the midpoint of the lightness axis which means color space is more spherical than cylindrical.