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Understanding the relationship between hue and brightness offers a fascinating insight into color theory, and it’s even more intriguing when applied to design work. Conventionally, to alter the appearance of a color’s brightness, you would modify the lightness component: This approach effectively enables you to lighten or darken a color. However, it often leads to a reduction in the color’s intensity, making it appear closer to either white or black rather than merely lighter or darker. Since various hues are perceived with different brightness levels, an alternative method to change a color’s brightness is through the rotation of its hue. To increase a color’s brightness, simply rotate the hue towards the closest bright hue, at angles of 60°, 180°, or 300°. Conversely, to decrease brightness, the hue can be rotated towards the nearest dark hue, at angles of 0°, 120°, or 240°.

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Working with Yellow

This technique offers a valuable tool in palette creation, especially for lighter shades such as yellow. Yellow has the unique charectaristic that it appears dull, an almost greenish if you reduce the lightness.

Notice how the scale appears greener the darker it gets

By carefully rotating the hue towards a more orange tint as you reduce the lightness, the darker tones will feel more in tune with the scale, rather than appearing dull and greenish.

Notice the difference now that the hue is rotated closer to red the darker it gets