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Photoshop Color & Paint Effects

Image Modes   -  Image Adjustments   -   Paint Options   -  Utilizing Color   -  Effects in Action!

Image Modes

  • Grayscale - 256 variations of gray
  • Bitmap - black & white (one channel)
  • Indexed Color

Indexed Color maps colors to their nearest web-safe color, thus reducing the total number of color on the image for faster page loading.

Palette Pull-down Menu:

  • Exact - precise match for images already having less than 256 colors (RGB version of the image)
  • System - uses the Mac/Windows system palette of colors
  • Web (most common) - 216 web-safe colors
  • Uniform - sampling of colors across the array of colors
  • Local (perceptual, selective, adaptive) - usually the best choice because it uses the most frequently occurring colors from the original.
    • Perceptual - selects the colors most sensitive to the human eye.
    • Selective - selects those closest to web-safe colors.
    • Adaptive - selects the colors most commonly used within the image.
  • Master (perceptual, selective, adaptive)
  • Custom - create your own palette of colors in Indexed Color
  • Previous

 

  • Colors: select the number of colors you wish your image to have
    • Forced: forces the use of certain colors via options provided
    • Matte: background color
  • Dither:
    • Diffusion - minimizes the effect of color reduction on image quality. Problem areas of color reductions are concealed somewhat by blending neighboring pixels to creates the illusion of color
      o Pattern - arranges pixels in a distinct pattern
  • Amount: % of dithering

 

Image Adjustments

  • Create an adjustment layer and work from a layer for the most flexibility
  • To apply adjustments to a section of an image, create a selection first and make the adjustments to the selection itself

Image > Adjust > Levels

Adjusts the brightness, contrast, and saturation within an image.

Used when a scanned image appears washed out.

The histogram (read from left to right) displays the dark to light values within the image. The "spikes" represent saturation - the taller the line the greater the saturation of color.

left dropper - (black point) click on the darkest spot in the image to set this as the darkest point in the image
middle dropper - (gray point) sets the midtones, which usually do not need to be set after the other two are set
right dropper - (white point) click on the lightest spot in the image to set this as the lightest point in the image

left slider - adjusts shadows (blacks), slide to the right for darker shadows
middle slider - adjusts midtones (not used very much)
right slider - adjusts highlights (whites), slide to the left to brighten highlights and intensify contrast

output shadows - slide to the right to decrease contrast & lighten the image
output highlights - slide to the left to decrease contrast & darken the image

Load - reapply saved settings to other images

TIP: The droppers and the sliders actually do the same thing!

Image > Adjust > Auto Levels - automatically corrects the levels in your image

Image > Adjust > Curves

More precise than Levels in adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation within an image)

  • darker - pull points on the diagonal downward
  • lighter - pull points on the diagonal upward
  • TIP: from the Layers Palette > New Adjustment Layer > Curves > make adjustments so the original image is not impacted
  • TIP: click on a spot in the image and a circle will appear on the graph representing the value of the pixel you selected
  • TIP: the pencil creates a "bumpy" curve with sharper color changes

Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast or Auto Contrast

Brightness - move to the right to lighten
Contrast - move to the right for intensity

Image > Adjust > Color Balance or Hue/Saturation

Adjusts the color within the image without changing the contrast
or brightness.

  • Hue - change the color completely
  • Saturation - add/subtract richness of the color
  • Lightness - add highlights or shadows

Image > Adjust > DeSaturation or Replace Color or Selective Color or Channel Mixer

Adjust colors within the image

Image > Adjust > Channel Mixer - create unique mixtures of RGB

Increase color - move to the left (negative value)
Decrease color - move to the right (positive value)

TIP: for Black - move to the left to reduce & to the right to increase

TIP: RGB has 3 channels, while CMYK has 4 channels. Bitmaps, grayscale, and indexed color have only 1 channel.

Image > Adjust > Invert

regular image - converts to a film negative effect
film negative - converts to a regular image view

Image > Adjust > Equalize - redistributes the image brightness (best for images that are too dark or lack contrast)

Image > Adjust > Posterize - reduce the number of colors or value levels via a scale from 2 - 253.

Ex: silkscreen effect - set at 4 to 8

Image > Adjust > Threshold - convert to black & white

Image > Adjust > Variations - adjust and correct the color information in images. Presents mini-previews of settings for shadows, midtones, highlights, and saturation. As you click on a mini-image, the preview image will take on more of that characteristic. The fine-to-course slider scale sets the amount of change added with each "click".

 

Painting Options

The Paint Tools are used to draw, erase, and brush your images with color or designs.

PaintBrush/Pencil Tool

The first step is to select the brush and brush options. Then, we select the tool that will utilize the brush.

The Paint Option is selected on the Tool Box above. Notice the Paint Options Bar options:

Paint Brush - Mode - Opacity - Brush Dynamics (far right)

TIP: the Number displayed under a brush indicates its size in pixels.

Click the Brush Sample Button in the Options menu:

  • Diameter - diameter in pixels
  • Hardness -The higher the value, the softer the edge (similar to feathering)
  • Spacing - distance between brush marks
  • Default (25) - paint appearance is determined by the speed you move your mouse (slow gives a consistent line while fast creates individual dots of paint)
  • checkbox - higher values for individual circles of paint with spaces between them
    • 25 - solid line
    • 50 - dotted line
  • Angle - angle at which the brush touches the image, use with roundness to determine the angle of the elliptical brush strokes
  • Roundness - shape of the brush, used to create brushes that are oval or elliptical

TIP: Click and hold down the right-point arrow in the upper right corner of the palette and select SAVE BRUSHES to save the "brush options" you've just created.

TIP:

  • Straight lines - Hold down the SHIFT key while you draw
  • Straight line between 2 points - Click in the first spot, click + SHIFT to mark the end point. Photoshop will join the two spots.

Paint Brush Options Bar - Paint Modes

Paint Modes involves the blending of colors. Different looks will appear, depending on the color of paint, the opacity setting and if wet edge is selected or not.

  • Normal - default, the color added replaces the base color
  • Dissolve - the base color becomes speckled
  • Behind - applies color only to transparent parts of a layer (must have preserve transparency turned off)
  • Clear - (line tool, paint bucket, fill, stroke only) makes every pixel transparent (must have preserve transparency turned off)
  • Multiply - Darker colors become darker by multiplying the blend color and the base color.
  • Screen - lighter parts a lot lighter, darker parts a little bit lighter. Nothing gets any darker. Multiples the base color by the inverse of the blend color, giving it a lighter color. Similar to painting with bleach.
  • Overlay - multiplies (darken) or screen (lighten) colors, depending on the base color.
  • Soft light - if the color is lighter than gray, the color will lighten. If the color is darker than gray, the color will darken
  • Hard light - if the color is lighter than gray, screen mode is applied. If the color is darker than gray, multiply mode is applied. Increase in contrast, brightens the light colors and darkens the dark colors. Similar to shining a spotlight on the image.
  • Color dodge - lightens the base color to reflect the blend color, colors become paler but brighter
  • Color burn - darkens the base color to reflect the blend color, opposite of color dodge
  • Darken - if blending two colors, the darker color is selected over the lighter color (no blending)
  • Lighten - reverse of darken (must use lighter foreground color for this to work)
  • Difference - blending two colors, subtracts the less bright color from the bright color. Blending with black has no effect at all.
  • Exclusion - similar to difference but with less contrast for a softer effect
  • Hue - blends the hue of the color being added with the brightness and saturation of the base color
  • Saturation - blends the saturation of the color being added with the hue and luminance (brightness or darkness) of the base color
  • Color - blends the hue and saturation of the color being added with the luminance of the base color (used with black & white images)
  • Luminosity - uses the luminance of the new color while ignoring the hue and saturation of the new color.

Brush Dynamics

Three settings for each item: off, fade, stylus (works only with a digitizing tablet). Fade settings vary by the size of the fade, intensity of the fade and color fading.

Airbrush Tool (Spray Paint Can)

Works like the Paintbrush but the amount of paint applied varies by pressure and duration. The longer you hold the mouse down on the same spot, the thicker the paint. The Pressure Setting adjusts how quickly the paint is applied.

Cloning Stamp

Alt + Click - select the area to be cloned
Click - add the select elsewhere

Eraser Tools

Works like the Paintbrush with the opposite effect - removing the color and replacing it with the background color.

Eraser

Background Eraser - erases large areas without impacting items contains within the image
Magic Eraser - erases an entire area of color

  • Tolerance - range of colors you wish to erase
  • Sampling -
    • Contiguous - every color you drag the eraser over will erase
    • Once - select one color to erase
    • Background swatch - erase a color from the color picker in the swatch palette
  • Eraser Type -
    • discontiguous - erase a color only within the eraser's path
    • contiguous - erase any pixels close to each other of a specifed color
    • find edges - similar to contiguous but leaves any sharp edges

TIP: Use the Dynamic feature to "fade" the erasing.

Blur/Sharpen/Smudge Tools

  • Blur - Makes any portion that you brush slightly blurry or softened.
  • Sharpen - Opposite of blur.
  • Smudge - similar to blur but also moves the color around while you brush. (similar to smudge wet paint)

Dodge/Burn/Sponge Tools

TIP: The Dodge, Burn, or Sponge tools cannot be used on indexed color images or bitmaps.

  • Dodge - lightens the color brushed
  • Burn - darkens the color brushed
  • Sponge -
    • 1)saturates color (makes it more intense)
    • 2)desaturates color (makes it duller or closer to gray)
    • select your desired setting in the Sponge Options Bar

 

Utilizing Color

Swatch Palette

The Swatch Palette allows you to easily select a color for painting.

Eyedropper

Click the mouse button when the dropper is over the area of color you wish to duplicate (this color becomes the foreground)

  • Background > ALT + click
  • Eyedropper > Options bar > Sample Size >
  • Point Sample (single pixel)
  • 3 x 3 Average (average of the color values of a 9-pixel area)
  • 5 x 5 Average (average of the color values of a 25-pixel area)

Sharpening (contrast between pixels)

  • Filter > Sharpen
  • Sharpen
  • Sharpen Edges
  • Sharpen More
  • Unsharp Mask - combination of the above
  • Amount - higher the percentage, the more sharpened the image will be
  • Radius - thickness of the edges that are sharpened, higher numbers create a greater contrast
  • Threshold - greater effect with a lower number

NOTE: Scanners can "change" the shades or colors on your images.

 

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