Without a technical analysis of metal content, you can only go on colour to differentiate a standard 70% brass from gilding metal.
Generally the latter is a warmer, more golden orange hue than the yellow or pale lemon (greenish) hue of higher zinc content.
Bronzes tend towards a browner yellow and gun-metals (tin,zinc and copper) being towards the orange/red end of brown/yellow
Throw nickel into the mix and you get whiter shades of the above with aluminium adding a subtle red tone
Tombac (copper and zinc with traces of tin/lead/arsenic) is particularly golden and often of a 18 to 22k shade.
Gold itself is equally as diverse, having different shades regardless of karat, depending on the alloying metals and even being blue, purple, green and black in some combinations.
White gold is a yellowish grey or yellowish white and the bright white commonly seen is rhodium plating, not the white gold.
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