I can define all three and I still mix the wrong colour constantly. Something looks off in a painting and I reach for a different hue when the actual problem turns out to be elsewhere.
Which of the three is usually the one causing the problem?
Accepted Answer
Value, almost always, and it is the one beginners adjust last.
Value is how light or dark the colour is. It carries the structure of an image: form, depth, where the light is coming from. Get value right and a painting reads even if every hue is wrong, which is why black and white photographs work at all.
Get value wrong and no amount of correcting the hue will rescue it, because the shapes stop describing form.
The test is to convert to greyscale, or squint until the detail drops out. If the image goes flat and muddy in greyscale, the problem is value and you have probably been fighting it with hue for hours.
One correction to how saturation is usually taught, because "make it more vivid" is the standard bad instinct.
Saturated colour reads as vivid only in contrast with something duller. A painting where everything is fully saturated looks flat and garish, and paradoxically less colourful, because nothing stands out.
Most convincing colour work is largely muted, with saturation saved for the few places that should draw the eye. If a piece looks noisy rather than rich, the fix is usually desaturating most of it rather than pushing the accent further.
It is also why colour picking from a photo misleads. In isolation a shadow colour looks like dull brown; in context it reads correctly. Judge relationships rather than swatches.
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