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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?
As CK1 says, getting a darker variant of a colour using HSB/HSV and HSL (Hue, Saturation, Brightness/Value or Lightness) scales is easy. Reduce the variable that corresponds to brightness, lightness or value. In both HSL and HSV, that takes you straight down towards black, keeping the same hue and saturation. (HSB is basically the same as HSV)
In RGB scales (and remember that both RGB and CMYK colours can be manipulated using HSB/HSL), it's also pretty easy. Reduce the amount of Red,Green, and Blue by the same relative amount - resulting in less light but the same ratio between each type of light. If you think of it like a 3D cube where Red,Green,Blue each have a dimension...
...you can think of it as simply moving in a straight line from wherever your colour is in the cube, towards the black corner (0 Red, 0 Green, 0 Blue), away from the white corner (255 Red, 255 Green, 255 Blue).
Hex codes are just RGB values written in Hexadecimal format. The first two characters after the # are Red, then Blue, then Green. Hexadecimal means counting in base 16, which looks like this:
00=zero
01=one
...
09=nine
0A=ten
0B=eleven
...
0E=fourteen
0F=fifteen
10=sixteen
11=seventeen
...
1A=twenty six
1B=twenty seven
...
FE=two hundred and fifty four
FF=two hundred and fifty five
The internet is full of formulas and snippets of code to convert hexadecimals to regular (base-ten) numbers.
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.
As others have stated, HSB is a good way to play with value shifts. Often, I have my base colors defined and I might need a variation to support a gradient or highlight in my CSS. For these kinds of experiements, I like to use 0to255.com for generating value ranges.
I asked a similar question a while ago and from what I understand the best/easiest way to accomplish a darker (or lighter) shade of whatever color you have is to use the HSL (or HSB/HSV) model and adjust the L (lightness) value (or B/V values in other models) up and down as needed.
In the example you've given you can take the H = 204, S = 74, B = 80 and move the B = 80 down to B = 40 and see that you have a darker shade of the same color.
