Saturation/de-saturation

The purest saturation is achieved at highest intensity and lower saturation at lower intensity.  A colour can be desaturated using a subtractive system, such as for watercolour you can add white, black, grey or the complimentary colour to desaturate the colours further.

Mixing where the colours are saturated and where they are desaturated can change the impact of a whole image, such as a fully desaturated painting will look either gentle or dull. On the other hand a fully saturated coloured painting will look intense and bold, and in some cases this can be too much and will put off the viewer. However used in the right way they can create very interesting images for the viewer to interpret.

Whatever is saturated in an image will draw the eye to it first if the rest of the image is desaturated. For example a painting of a bowl of fruit, is the orange is brighter and more saturated than the rest then that will be the main focal point that the viewer is drawn to look at.