adobe photoshop - Darker shade of a given color

What does it mean and how do I get a darker shade of a given color. For example if I have the color

R = 53, G = 140, B = 205

or

H = 204, S = 74, B = 80, 

or

#358CCD

What value do I change in Adobe Illustrator CS5 or Above Photoshop so that I get a more darker/solid/bold look of the same color?

Answer

For the RGB spectrum, black is 0,0,0 and white is 255,255,255. So if R = 53, G = 140, B = 205, then a darker version would be R = 33, G = 120, B = 185 and a lighter version is R = 73, G = 160, B = 225. Your mileage may vary. You'll have to play with the values to see what gives you the colors you want.

Hex is the same as RGB, just done in a different way. Hex breaks out into three pairs of base-16 digits. If you're not familiar with base 16, it's counting to 10 using 16 digits instead of 10. Thus, you'd count like this: 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10. FF in base 16 = 255 in base 10. For #358CCD, 35 is the red value, 8C is the green value, and CD is the blue value. #000000 is black, and #FFFFFF is white, so decreasing or increasing each color value gets you darker and lighter, respectively.