In color theory, saturation refers to the intensity of a specific hue. It is based on the color's purity; a highly saturated hue has a vivid, intense color, while a less saturated hue appears more muted and grey. With no saturation at all, the hue becomes a shade of grey. Saturation is one of three coordinates in the HSV color space.

The saturation of a color is determined by a combination of light intensity and how much it is distributed across the spectrum of different wavelengths. The purest colour is achieved by using just one wavelength at a high intensity such as in laser light. If the intensity drops the saturation also drops. To desaturate a color in a subtractive system (such as watercolor), you can add white, black, gray, or the hue's complement. In an RGB color space, saturation can be thought of as the standard deviation σ of the color coordinates R(red), G(green), and B(blue). Letting μ represent the brightness, then

An example of saturation in layman's terms in the RGB color model is that you will have maximum saturation if you have 100% brightness in (for instance) the red channel while having 0% brightness in the other channels. And you would have no saturation if all the color channels are equal. Thus, saturation is the difference between the values of the channels.

See also

• Hue
• Saturation