Munsell Color System

The Munsell Color System, developed in 1898 by American artist A. Munsell, is another commonly used color measurement system. Munsell aimed to create a "rational way to describe color" that would use clear decimal notation rather than color names. In 1905 he published a color notation, which has been reprinted several times and is still a standard for colorimetry.

Munsell modeled his system as an orb around whose equator runs a band of colors. The axis of the orb is a scale of neutral gray values with white as the North Pole and black as the South Pole. Extending horizontally from the axis at each gray value is a gradation of color progressing from neutral gray to full saturation. With these three defining aspects, any of thousands of colors could be fully described. Munsell named these aspects, or qualities: hue, value, and chroma.

Hue

Figure 1: The Munsell System

Munsell defined hue as the quality by which we distinguish one color from another. He selected five principle colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple; and five intermediate colors: yellow-red, green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue, and red-purple. He arranged these in a wheel measured off in 100 compass points. The colors were identified as R for red, YR for red-yellow, Y for yellow etc. Each primary and intermediate color was allotted ten degrees around the compass and then further identified by its place in the segment.

Value

Munsell defined value as the quality by which we determine light colors from dark ones. Value is a neutral axis that refers to the gray level of the color, ranging from white to black.

Chroma

Chroma is the quality that distinguishes a pure hue from a gray shade. The chroma axis extends from the value axis at a right angle and the amount of chroma is noted after the value designation. Therefore, 7.5YR 7/12 indicates a yellow-red hue tending toward yellow with a value of 7 and a chroma of 12. However, chroma is not uniform for every hue at every value.
Mussel saw that full chroma for individual hues might be achieved at very different places in the color sphere. In the Munsell System, reds, blues, and purples tend to be stronger hues that average higher chroma values at full saturation, while yellows and greens are weaker hues that average fullest chroma saturation relatively close to the neutral axis.

In the "Munsell Book of Color", you will find the complete system in 40 pages. Each page has a different hue running around the spectrum to red and on through purple back to violet (PB in the Munsell notation). The colors on each page are arranged in rows of equal Value and in columns of equal Chroma. Each color has three references corresponding to hue, value, and chroma (ex: 5YR/5/10 is a saturated orange).