Calculated Harmony · Lightness variation

Vary the brightness of a starting colour!

The brightness variation is not only suited to finding additions with the goal of a harmonic composition, but it is also suited to finding other (brighter or darker) variations of the selfsame basic statement. Playing with the diverse brightness’s reminds of light and shadow, compared to the other harmony variations (Complimentary colour contrast, Saturation contrast) it has a much greater ease to it.

Brightness variation is also referred to as “brightness contrast” in the literature. We preferred the term “variation” as the results are not contrasting, but rather next to each other, like variations of the same thing.

First the program calculates the ideal brightness variation to a colour tone, which merely varies the brightness according to the specified measure when the primary colour tone and degree of saturation (H and C in the CIELAB model) stay the same. With the selection of the “real colours” the next closest colour of the appropriate colour systems are indicated along with the deviation from the ideal.

 

The Rossmann-Zentrale in Hannover-Großburgwedel is a successful architectural example.

Short instruction

1. Select „Colour harmony“ and the second button of the harmony variants.
2. Choose the starting colour of the harmony calculation. Either by entering colour values or by selecting one of the included colour systems.
3. You can select the number of steps (including the starting colour) below the result rectangle.
4. Using the results-list calculate with "Ideal" or "RAL..." either...
   - ideal type brightness gradation (L-variations in CIE Lab), or
   - the RAL-colours located closest to these results as well as their variances Delta E to the according calculated ideal colour.

A click on the PDF button opens a window which includes the results in a well arranged form combined on one page. You can print this page for your documents or you can pass it on by E-Mail.

Further functions

If you press and hold down the Alt key while drawing the mouse over the results field, the number of grades varies. Draw it to the right and the grade gets larger (max. 20), draw it to the left and it gets smaller.
Double click on any given colour in the results field (bar or list) the colour will create a new brightness variation for the newly specified colour. With the ideal brightness variation you can switch off between Lab-, HLC- and RGB-coordinates.

A brightness variation with 6 RAL EFFECT colours.

Notes

In colour systems in which there are no brightness variations the program will also not be able to find any.

RAL CLASSIC consists of 210 colour tones, of which many turn out to be very strong and often do not have any different brightness gradations of the same primary colour. Thus the RAL CLASSIC system is suited for brightness variations in a limited capacity only. RAL answered the demand for more range of variation with the RAL DESIGN and the RAL EFFECT system. In the RAL DESIGN System the uniform L-progression of the RAL DESIGN-colours is exactly what our program calculates.

 

---

Calculated Harmony

Complimentary contrast

Lightness variation

Saturation variation

Colourdevelopment