<P> In color theory, a tint is the mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is the mixture of a color with black, which reduces lightness . A tone is produced either by the mixture of a color with grey, or by both tinting and shading . Mixing a color with any neutral color (including black, gray and white) reduces the chroma, or colorfulness, while the hue remains unchanged . </P> <P> In common language, the term "shade" can be generalized to furthermore encompass any varieties of a particular color, whether technically they are shades, tints, tones, or slightly different hues; while the term "tint" can be generalized to refer to any lighter or darker variation of a color (e.g. Tinted windows). </P> <P> When mixing colored light (additive color models), the achromatic mixture of spectrally balanced red, green and blue (RGB) is always white, not gray or black . When we mix colorants, such as the pigments in paint mixtures, a color is produced which is always darker and lower in chroma, or saturation, than the parent colors . This moves the mixed color toward a neutral color--a gray or near - black . Lights are made brighter or dimmer by adjusting their brightness, or energy level; in painting, lightness is adjusted through mixture with white, black or a color's complement . </P>

Why is gray referred to as tone when it is added to color