Term: Contrast of Saturation

The contrast between colors of a high saturation (or in more precise terms of pure hue with strong luminosity) and desaturated colors with less luminosity, is one that is popularly used in filmmaking. Recall that desaturation is achieved by adding the complementary color to pure hue of high luminosity or saturation. Often, a background is designed in desaturated, and therefore unobtrusive colors, while essential objects are set off from that background through the use of striking strong colors. In this way, the signal effect that colors of pure hue already have in themselves can be additionally strengthened.