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Lightness (color)

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Lightness (sometimes called value or tone) is a property of a color, or a dimension of a color space, that is defined in a way to reflect the subjective brightness perception of a color for humans along a lightness–darkness axis. A color's lightness also corresponds to its amplitude.



Relationship between lightness, value, and luminanceEdit



File:Lightness approximations.svg
V=10 \sqrt{Y}
V=2.357 Y^{0.343}-1.52
V=2.217 Y^{0.352}-1.324
V=2.468 Y^{1/3}-1.636
Wyszecki simplifies this to:[14]
CIELAB uses the following formula:
f(u)= \left\{\begin{array}{ll}\frac{841}{108}u + \frac{4}{29}, & u \le (6/29)^3 \\ \\
u^{1/3}, & u > (6/29)^3\end{array}\right.


An 18% grey card, having a reflectance of 0.18, has lightness very close to 50. It is called "mid grey" because its lightness is midway between black and white.


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  13. Glasser, L.G., A.H. McKinney, C.D. Reilly, and P.D. Schnelle (October 1958). Cube-root color coordinate system. JOSA 48 (10): 736–740.
  14. Wyszecki, Günther (November 1963). Proposal for a New Color-Difference Formula. JOSA 53 (11): 1318–1319. Note: The asterisks are not used in the paper.
  15. Pauli, Hartmut K.A. (1976). Proposed extension of the CIE recommendation on "Uniform color spaces, color spaces, and color-difference equations, and metric color terms". JOSA 66 (8): 866–867.


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