There are 2 major, accepted color scales out there for consumption by human eyes – additive color and subtractive color. Subtractive color is accomplished via some sort of dyeing, screening or printing method. This is achieved by mixing either custom ink colors, or adopting a color scale , which in the subtractive realm of color, is called CMYK.

This refers to the 4 base colors used to physically, in paint or dye form, mix together to allow the formation of any color in the Cyan Magenta Yellow Black scale. This is what’s knows as CMYK – but i’m not sure why K stands for black though.

Additive color is the realm of discussion in this article. Additive color refers to the scale of color produced by adding different colors of light (rather than ink) to produce an image or color shade. In additive color, when you add the 3 primary colors together, Red Green and Blue (RGB), you get pure white, as illustrated in the additive color wheel above. Whereas if you mix together Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks, you get a dull brown.

Since RGB is the primary color scale for all monitors, phones, screens, laptops, anything that produces light; we will be discussing this today, as a way to empower you to be able to have brilliant images on your websites, and to get the most out of the pictures you snap in with your camera in any condition. We begin with a picture of a clearing on the ocean.

The following picture looks dull, discolored and too red. But you’d be surprised how much color information is contained in the picture, that simply needs to be brought out.

Open the image in Photoshop and you can follow along as you read the article. The tool we will be using can be found in the Image menu under Adjustments, and it’s called Levels. Otherwise it can be Hotkeyed at Ctrl-L.

The levels panel is one of the most used panels in Photoshop. You will also find Auto Levels. It is not recommended to use Auto Levels because it simply cannot replace the eye, and most importantly the taste of the viewer.

Once you have the levels panel open, there is a simple way to tell if all of the available color information is being used. The following is the levels output from the original image of the clearing on the water, showing a red discrepancy where all of the available color frequencies aren’t being utilized to their potential:

In order to correct this, and the inherent lack of color and brightness in the image, we need to give each respective primary color its own attention.

Using the Channel picker at the top we first choose the Red channel.  Next, pull the right, white slider over to the left where the dots begin to appear on the graph, indicating the channels are being used. Next pull the left, black slider over to the right to the point where the channel begins to show usage. Do this for red, green, and blue respectively.

As you make these changes, make sure the Preview checkbox is ticked so you can see your changes in action. Here’s what the process looks like, after gradually fixing red, green and blue:

Notice that even when we only fix the red channel, the picture already gets slightly brighter and richer. By bringing these sliders in, we are essentially telling Photoshop to spread the available color information over a wider range of color frequencies, and thus fill out the full spectrum more richly. Next we move on to the green channel.

At this juncture shown above, the picture starts to become richer and more saturated with color.

After finally adjusting the blue channel below, we can see the picture is at a very rich stage. Details that weren’t previously visible shine out now. What used to be shadows in the bushes are now more bushes, more leaves, more detail. And you would have never known the image contains all this information if you didn’t open the Levels panel.

Using these steps, you can take any RGB image and really pull the most out of the information that’s there.

Not all the detail in a picture is immediately visible to the naked eye. But with the Photoshop Levels tool you can maximize on detail and quality for each image.

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Up until now, every time I have to design something, anything, I automatically reach for my trusty old Color Index book. If not for the convenient vinyl colors in this little book, I probably would have destroyed the little bugger a long time ago from wear and tear.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around the net. I’ve seen all the little color pickers and color schemers, and they’re useful but theres always something missing. None of the color schemers I’ve seen have everything.

This awesome view is what you will see when you first load up Color Scheme Designer. At first glance, it seems daunting but when you dive into it, you quickly get a feeling for the raw power of this app and how really simple it is to use; a marvel of UI.

First and foremost, you want to decide how many base colors you’re allowed to work with and then take it from there. The top left corner has the color formulas you will start from. Initially, you can choose one color and the app breaks it out into its non-clashing, complementing counterparts, as shown above. At most there can be four colors but the following depicts the initial variations, starting from my favorite shade of blue, where the black dot is on the color circle.

This results in the following color breakout schemes, which in and of themselves are useful, and with the HEX values immediately selectable, copyable and pastable. Color hex values are also accessible via mouseover:

But that’s not even all! The application allows for custom controlling of the resulting color scheme, as well as at-a-glance color value table, Voila:

And now, the defining feature this app provides is the fully interactive light and dark page previews, which I’ve generated from the Triad version of my color scheme based on my original choice of my favorite blue, in a completely eye-candy friendly application of color theory:

That’s still not the end of the features this app provides! Most notably is the ability to simulate various color deficiencies for accessibility, as well as the ability to export HTML/CSS, XML, and text as noted above.

I hope this app helps everyone out there as much as it has helped me. I realize that inspiration is in very short supply these days, and my trusty old color index has provided me countless blasts of inspiration. In light of that, this app is ground-breaking in that arena and will provide you with blasts of inspiration as well.

Are there any better color schemes or pickers that you have used or prefer? Let us know your choices in the comments. If you have any questions about color and color shemes, please add them into the comments as well.

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Allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is Mike, also (hopefully) known in the online community as Commodore 64 or C64 for short. I have spent the last 12 years, since Photoshop 5.5, exploring the many realms of this staple of the graphic designer’s diet. Aside from the usual plethora of features, Photoshop offers tools for anyone ranging from budding photographer to astrononomer.

Throughout the years, I’ve known Photoshop to be ultra powerful in the pathing arena. The pathing tool, or pen tool, might very well be the most powerful tool in the Adobe arsenal mainly because of its origins.

I’ll keep this history lesson brief: The idea behind the pen tool, or less commonly known as the Bezier tool (pictured above) is that geometric constants can be used to create flowing, curvacious lines and designs. It was because of this tool, developed by Pierre Bézier in 1962 and then put to work in the auto manufacturing industry, came about the advent of curvy, smooth cars rather than the Caprice Classics of the day. Fast forward to 2009 – Adobe has put Beziers mathematic principles to good use in many of it’s previous versions of Photoshop and Illustrator up until today.

I use the pen tool primarily to make quick, smooth, profesh cutouts of anything ranging from a bikini model with hair blowing in the wind to a tree with a multitude of branches (in combination with some color specific selections).

Today, we’ll concentrate on pathing out a simple object from its background, let’s say a freshly cut orange with shadows on a white surface:

Firstly, we need to identify a few key features we’ll need to pay attention to as we path. First, the base shadow and the shadow reflection on the actual oranges. We will be removing the base shadow and leaving the shadow reflection on the orange for now.

Secondly, let’s choose our pen tool ().

We need to verify that the pen tool is set correctly for what we’re doing – the graphic below depicts how your pen tool options should be set:

Now, we begin to path. Usually, I like to start at a spot where two circular shapes meet at a rough, sharp angle. In this case, it’s on top. Click once there as shown to create your first anchor point.

Next, follow (with your eyes) along to the right around the circumference of the orange. Since the orange is not a perfect circle, follow until you see a jitter of some sort in the smoothness of the circle, in this case its near the stem.

Click and HOLD the left mouse button where you see a jitter to create another anchor point and pull the handle it creates to manipulate the resulting path to snugly fit around the shape of the orange as shown on the left. Don’t be afraid to take the tool outside of the white work area. You can now release the mouse button.

The next step, while holding down the Alt key, grab (click and hold) the handle that extends in the direction you’re traveling with the pathing tool (clockwise), in this case the handle on the bottom right. Drag this handle point into the origin of the anchor point as shown and release. You’ve just created your first path line!

Note: The Bezier tool is only capable of creating partial circles with each pair of path points. Anything more than a quarter-circle will require another pair of anchor points as it will become oval, thus losing its roundness.

Continue these 3 steps while following snugly around the oranges. Make sure not to spread your anchor points too thinly.

Once you follow around the oranges, taking care to exclude the base shadow from your path as shown. Close the path by simply clicking and holding on the path point where you first started as shown, while pulling the handle out until the desired final shape is achieved.

You now have a completed path. You can use this path to create a cutout selection using the paths panel alongside the layers panel, while also knocking out the shadow that was previously given to this picture.

In order to knock out the shadows remaining on the oranges themselves, you have to simply grab the dodge tool at maybe 10% and start to lightly brush away the shadowy areas on the bottom until the area is a nice orange. On top of that, you can also create your own shadow and lighting direction since you will have knocked out the original shadow and now have a layer with an actual shape to it.

I hope this helps all of the aspiring Photoshoppers out there to begin delving a little deeper into the powers of the Photoshop. Thanks for reading folks.

Have questions? Drop them in the comments. Have comments? Drop them in the comments. See any discrepencies between Gimp and Photoshop? Drop them in the comments.

If you’re new to Photoshop make sure to download An Idiot’s Guide To Photoshop.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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