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When a monochromatic or mostly uncoloured (e.g. line art) image contains an area, or small areas (or "spot(s)") of colour.

Typically, an image featuring spot colour will only use a single colour other than the monochromatic colour of the image (e.g. a sepia or blue monochrome, with a spot colour of red), however, there may be multiple small areas of different colours (e.g. for different character's eyes).

A character's eyes, blush, blood splatter, or glowing objects are the most commonly "spot coloured" elements in a scene. Spot colour may be used to highlight a point of interest in an image.

Note:

Not to be confused with restricted palette — which describes an image that is limited to a small number of distinct colours (usually 2-4) in a scene, but is fully coloured. This does not apply to variations in monochromatic values, the second example image above has multiple shades of blue, but they are only variations in the same colour.