Is black a shade or a color?

Black a Shade or Tone?

Good question, however, black is not a shade nor is it a tone. I always remember hearing black is lack of color if I'm wrong on this lack of color is white and I'm stumped.

Answer

I've taken Interior Decorating and also do artwork and black and white are not colors. The word "tone" simply means you have very dark black; charcoal black; gray/black and white comes in different shades as well. Without black and white there would be no depth to colors.

Black is neither a shade or tone:

Black is composed of all colors of the rainbow, and it simply holds them, neither reflecting them nor showing them to the viewer:

Answer

From what I understand, like the others said, black is neither a shade nor a tone. Black is the absence of all color. (which in this case makes white having all colors present)

Answer (New)

It really depends on what kind of color you are talking about.
When it comes to pigments, the color black comes from a mixture of all the colors. Therefore, yes, it is a color, it's all of the colors. But to really understand how that works exactly, one must understand the basics of the light spectrum.

The light spectrum however is the opposite. White light is all the colors of the visible spectrum where as "black light" (no such thing, in this context, exists) commonly known as darkness, is the lack of all colors. If something is, say, green, this object will absorb all colors of light and reflect the green part of the spectrum. We thus perceive the object as being green. The brightness or darkness of these colors depends upon the objects ability to reflect and absorb whatever color.

SO
Light - White is all the colors, black is none of them (darkness)
Paint - White is none of the colors, black is a mixture of them all.

Answer (New)

According to http://www.colormatters.com/vis_bk_white.html, Black is not a color, while white is.

Is black a color? No, black is not a color; a black object absorbs all the colors of the visible spectrum and reflects none of them to the eyes.
Is white a color? Yes, white is a color. White reflects all the colors of the visible light spectrum to the eyes.

First answer by Cassandra021485. Last edit by Wisher45. Contributor trust: 1 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 124 [recommend question]

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