Value Study

What is a value study?

A value study strips colour out of a reference and shows only how light or dark different areas are. It's one of the most useful things you can do with a reference before you start mixing paint: if the values are wrong, no amount of accurate colour saves the piece.

Why artists use value studies

• Seeing the underlying light pattern before committing to colour
• Catching value mistakes early, while they're still cheap to fix
• Comparing areas that look similar in colour but sit at different values
• Planning how a piece will read from across the room, where value contrast carries more than colour does

How this tool works

Drop in a reference and it's grouped into 2 to 10 discrete value steps, entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded anywhere. There are three render modes: Grayscale for a pure light/dark read, Umber for a warm underpainting tone, or Color, which keeps each group's own averaged hue so the value structure stays visible without losing the colour relationships. A simplification slider smooths the source image first, so a noisy photo doesn't fragment into scattered, unusable patches. You can toggle back to the original at any point to compare.

Combine with other tools

• Run Composition Analyzer first to lock in framing and proportions before you study values
• Use Shape Simplifier on the same reference to see value groups as clean, paintable shapes rather than pixel regions
• For a fast 2-value composition check, try Notan Generator instead, which is built for threshold-based light/dark studies