A color gradient, also called a color ramp or color shift is a sequence of colors which gradually shift from one color into another color by changing one or more properties of the initial color.

Primary properties can be value, saturation and hue or simply the red, green and blue components.

In the examples shown here, the changes are given as functions “delta p0 (i)” where p is the changed property and i is the index of the color in the sequence, i=0 referring to the initial color. The function values give the change relative to the initial value of the property (p0).

Changing only the lightness is closely related to the concept of tints and shades.

further reading:

• Color Gradient
• Tints and Shades
• Dynamic Color Gradient Generator