Design Nomenclature / Color
Contrast of complements
Also called complementary contrast
- Color
- Composition
- 2D & 3D
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
Difference between hues that cancel to neutral when mixed. Set adjacent at full chroma they intensify one another to the point of vibration — the shared edge appears to shimmer, because neither hue can win the local adaptation and the eye keeps re-deciding. Muting one member is the usual fix.
Not to be confused with
- Contrast of hueItten's simplest contrast: difference carried by hue alone, strongest between unmixed primaries. It is also the weakest tool for legibility, since hue difference without value difference vanishes for dichromats and in greyscale — two colors can be maximally opposed in hue and identical in value.
- Simultaneous contrastA color's appearance shifting according to what surrounds it: a grey patch on red takes a greenish cast, the same grey on green turns faintly pink. The eye induces the complement of the surround into the field. Nothing about the patch changes — the measurement is identical, the percept is not.