Now that you know a little bit about different color modes and ways to adjust color, you need to know how to choose some colors to paint with. Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, sometimes you’ll want to paint in a detail or paint over something in a photo. And if you are an artist, you’re going to love painting digitally: Your color palette is infinite, as is the number of different brushes you can use. And you have complete control over how different colors combine with each other. In this hour, you’ll learn about choosing and applying color and about blending modes, which affect the way colors (and layers) interact.
At any given moment while working with Photoshop, you have two colors available. One’s the color on your brush—the Foreground color—and the other’s the color you’ll see if you remove paint from the canvas—the Background color. The nice thing about painting with Photoshop is that you don’t have to clean your brushes between colors, and you can change both the Foreground color and the Background color any time you want, unlike real-life canvas or paper, which tends to stubbornly stay the same color as you work.
The quickest way to choose a different paint or canvas color is to click the Foreground and Background swatches in the Tools panel (see Figure 6.1). The swatch to the upper left shows the Foreground color, and the one to the lower right shows the Background color. You can change either color by clicking its swatch.
The small button at the upper-left of the swatches, which looks like a miniature version of the swatches, resets them to the default colors (black and white). The curved arrow at the upper right of the swatches swaps the Background and Foreground colors, whatever they might be at the moment.
Note: What’s a Swatch?
Swatches are the two little squares of color at the bottom of the Tools panel—like the swatch cards you get from the paint store. Photoshop sticks color swatches into panels and dialogs any time you can choose a color to work with.
To change the color of either the Foreground color or the Background color swatch, click the swatch to open the Color Picker that’s currently selected in the General Preferences dialog (press Command-K/Ctrl+K to get there). If you haven’t changed the setting, the Adobe Color Picker is active by default. Your other choice is either the Apple or Windows Color Picker, depending on which operating system your computer uses. The examples in this hour use the Adobe Color Picker because all Photoshop users, regardless of platform, have access to it.
Tip: The Keys to Efficiency
Knowing and using keyboard shortcuts saves you a lot of time that you’d otherwise spend mousing around your screen, freeing up that time to have more fun! So here are a couple of good ones: You can reset the default colors by pressing D. Press X to swap the Background and Foreground colors; press it again to switch them back.
Photoshop’s Color Picker enables you to choose a Foreground or Background color in several different ways. Figure 6.2 shows the Color Picker dialog. The most common way to pick a color is to use the HSB model and click first in the vertical bar to set the hue component, and then in the color field to set the saturation and brightness components. If you’d rather specify a color by the numbers, you can enter values in any of the sets of entry fields for the different color models.
By default, the Color Picker opens to the HSB model, which (as you learned in Hour 4, “Specifying Color Modes and Color Models”) stands for hue, saturation, and brightness. You’ll always start with the Hue radio button active. This makes the vertical color bar into a spectrum in which you can choose a hue, and it enables the color field to show you all the possible saturation and brightness variations of the hue you’ve chosen. If you click anywhere in the color field, you’ll see the Saturation and Brightness values to the right change, but the Hue setting remains the same; to change it, you have to click in a different spot along the Hue bar or drag the slider to a different location.
Note: What’s Hue, Pussycat?
Hue—. Color, measured as its location on the color wheel in degrees (0°–360°). If you don’t remember what the color wheel looks like, take a look at Figure 5.10 to jog your memory.
Saturation—. The strength of the color, measured as a percentage between 0% (gray) and 100% (fully saturated color).
Brightness—. The lightness of the color, measured as a percentage from 0% (black) to 100% (white).
If you click the Saturation button, the color field changes to look like what you see in Figure 6.3. It shows you all the possible hues at the designated saturation value. If you click anywhere in the color field, Hue and Brightness values change, but the Saturation value stays the same.
The HSB model is easy to understand, and it’s the one that traditional artists use most often. You’re not stuck with it, though. You can switch to RGB, Lab, or even CMYK, although CMYK doesn’t have a clickable display mode; you just have to enter numbers. If you don’t want to work with HSB, RGB makes a good second choice as a working model because that’s the model that governs how your computer displays color. (It uses red, green, and blue light, just like a television.)
Choosing a color in RGB mode isn’t quite as straightforward as it would be in HSB mode. Remember, in this model, colors are made from three components—red, green, and blue—in amounts from 0 to 255. The vertical slider bar represents the value of the color radio button that you’ve clicked—red, for example. Looking at the color field, you’ll find the pure version of that color in the lower-left corner, with the other two components mixing in as you go up or right. In the upper-right corner, you’ll see the result of adding both of the other RGB components at levels of 255: white. To get the chosen color’s exact opposite (in the case of red, that’s cyan), you remove all of your chosen color from white by dragging the slider all to the bottom, leaving the other two values at 255. So the RGB value of cyan is 0 red, 255 green, 255 blue. Figure 6.4 shows what this looks like in the Color Picker.
Tip: Secret Code
Ever wondered about those little letters and numbers at the bottom of the Color Picker? You can see the HTML code for any color you choose, right there at the bottom of the dialog. Those codes are in hexadecimal format, ready to enter in the HTML source code for your web page if you’re like to hand-code your HTML.
The best way to become comfortable with picking colors in RGB color mode is to practice with it. Open your Color Picker by clicking the Tools panel’s Foreground color swatch and click a color. Then see how the numbers change as you click a different color. Try different radio button settings and see how they affect the color field and the color bar.
The Color panel offers an alternative to using the Color Picker, with these differences:
You can display it on your screen all the time, if you like, and because it’s nonmodal, you can keep working while it’s open. The Color Picker takes over when it’s open; you must click OK or Cancel to perform other tasks.
The Color panel doesn’t have the color field and color bar combination for choosing colors. Instead, it has a bar at the bottom that can display an RGB, CMYK, or grayscale color ramp. Clicking anywhere in the ramp chooses the color at that spot.
Next to the color value entry fields, the Color panel has sliders that you can use to change the value of individual color components.
For those who are mathematically challenged, the Color panel has fewer numbers to contend with than the Color Picker does, and the ones you see, as in Figure 6.5, are logically related to the sliders next to them. By default, the Color panel opens in whatever mode you used last, but you can set it to the color model you prefer to work in by using the pop-up menu, as shown in Figure 6.6. You can even choose web colors as a variant of RGB; the sliders are labeled R, G, and B, but their values are shown in hexadecimal.
The menu also enables you to reset the color ramp at the bottom of the Color panel to match the color model you’re working with. If your work will be printed and you want to avoid using colors that are out of gamut (in other words, they can’t be achieved with CMYK inks), you can set the color ramp to the CMYK spectrum and know that any color you click will be printable. Similarly, if you click Make Ramp Web Safe, the only colors displayed on the color ramp will be the 216 colors in the Web Safe palette. (Flip back to Hour 4 if you’ve forgotten what the Web Safe palette is.).
Here’s the easiest way to choose colors of all the different methods Photoshop offers. The Swatches panel (shown in Figure 6.7) functions like a box of watercolor paints; you simply dip your brush in a color and paint with it. To choose a Foreground color, just click the one you want. To choose a Background color, Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) to choose a color.
The Swatches panel opens by default, showing the current system palette, whether that’s Mac OS or Windows. You can specify colors in the Color Picker to add to the Swatches panel, or you can choose a color system from the panel’s pop-up menu, such as Pantone, Focoltone, TRUMATCH, or Toyo, and have an additional 700 to 1,000 or more printing-ink color swatches appended to those already shown in the panel. You can also add custom colors using the Eyedropper tool described in the next section, and you can save and reload your own palettes, or sets of custom colors.
Add New Colors from the Color Picker to the Swatches Panel
Swatches are easy to work with, but Photoshop’s choices of color won’t always match yours. Here’s how to add your own colors to those displayed in the Swatches panel.
Click the Foreground color swatch in the Tools panel to open the Color Picker.
Use the Color Picker to specify the color you have in mind; then click OK.
Open the Swatches panel (choose Window, Swatches). Drag it away from the edge of the screen if it’s docked.
Click the lower-right corner of the Swatches panel and drag to enlarge the panel so that it resembles the one in Figure 6.8.
Move the cursor into the space below the existing swatches. It changes into the Paint Bucket tool.
Click anywhere in the unused space. Photoshop adds the new color after the existing colors and then asks you to give the new color a name. You can use a descriptive name (Logo Blue) or a poetic one (Lake Water Blue), or just leave the default name (Swatch 1).
If you use the same colors over and over, and they’re not included in any of the palettes that ship with Photoshop, you can save them in your own custom palette, which you can then load any time you want and also pass along to other users to ensure that their colors match yours. You can copy colors from photos, from scanned artwork, and even from your desktop, or you can define colors “by the numbers” in the Color panel or pick them in the Color Picker. When you’ve added all the colors you want to include to the Swatches panel, choose Save Swatches from the panel menu. This saves you time and the headache of having to re-create all your favorite colors each time you open Photoshop. Color swatches are saved in the Presets folder within the Adobe Photoshop CS4 program folder.
You saw the Eyedropper appear when you moved the mouse over a color swatch or over the color ramp in the Color panel. It also shows up in some of the adjustments dialogs, such as Levels and Hue/Saturation. You can use the Eyedropper to pick up a bit of whatever color you click it on, making that the active color. What’s neat about this tool is that it works in the same way on a picture—you can pick up a bit of sky blue, grass green, or skin, without having to try to work out a match for it in the Color Picker.
You’ll use the Eyedropper tool frequently when you’re retouching a picture, so that you can duplicate the colors in it. Click it anywhere in the image, and the color under its tip becomes the new Foreground color. Option-click (Mac) or Alt-click (Windows) to pick up a Background color instead. If you drag the Eyedropper across an image, the Foreground or Background color swatch in the Tools panel changes each time the Eyedropper touches a new color; just stop moving the mouse when the swatch looks right. And if you begin dragging in the Photoshop image window, you can keep the mouse button down and drag anywhere on your screen to pick up colors from your wallpaper, icons, or other programs’ document windows.
Tip: Hitting the Hot Spots
Remember that, as with all the tools, the Eyedropper is active only at its hot spot; in this case, that’s right at the tip. If you find it hard to work with the hot spot, just go to Preferences, Display, and change the display to Precise in the Other Cursors area. You’ll lose the cute little Eyedropper icon, but the targeting cursor that replaces it will be easier to position exactly where you want it.
When the Eyedropper is active, the Options bar (shown in Figure 6.9) contains two pop-up menus. The Sample Size menu enables you to specify how much of a sample to pick up with the Eyedropper. You can take a single pixel sample, or average the colors contained in a larger area (your choices are 3, 5, 11, 31, 51, or 101 pixels square). With the other menu, labeled simply Sample, you can choose whether to pick up colors found only in the current layer or whether to pick up colors from other layers as well.
You can temporarily convert any Painting tool (except the Eraser, the History Brush, and the Art History Brush) into an Eyedropper to change your Foreground color on the fly by pressing Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while you’re working. That’s the same modifier you use with the regular Eyedropper to pick up a Background color, which means you can’t choose a Background color unless you actually switch to the Eyedropper tool. My workaround: Pick up a color, then press X to swap the two swatches and make that color the Background color. Pick up another color as the Foreground color, and you’re good to go!
To load a saved swatch file, use the Swatches panel’s pop-up menu again. Choose Load Swatches. Locate the swatch file you want to use, as shown in Figure 6.10, and click Load.
Tip: Suite Swaps
Swatches can also be used to transfer colors between Photoshop and another Creative Suite application (such as InDesign or Illustrator). First, create your swatches. When you’ve got the colors you want, choose Save Swatches for Exchange from the Swatches panel’s pop-up menu. Your file will end up in the same folder, but it will use a different format (Adobe Swatch Exchange, .ase) that the other Creative Suite programs can import.
Use the Eyedropper and the Brush
Let’s take a few minutes to practice with the Brush and Eyedropper. Find a picture with a variety of different colors and open it in Photoshop. Then perform the following steps:
Before you begin, choose File, Save As and save your picture with a different name and in Photoshop native format, to preserve the original; then you can play with this copy as much as you like.
Press B to switch to the Brush tool, then open the Brush panel and choose a medium-sized brush shape.
Place the Brush over a color in the picture, as I have in Figure 6.11. Press Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) and click. The Brush turns into an Eyedropper and makes the color the Foreground color.
Release the Option or Alt key and drag in the image window to paint with the Brush using the color you’ve just picked up.
Open the Color panel (Window, Color) if it’s not already open. Hold your brush over the color ramp at the bottom of the panel. Again, it turns into an Eyedropper.
Click to choose another color, and then paint something else into your picture. If you don’t want to use the same brush, you can change brush tips in the Brush panel, switch to the Pencil (press Shift+B), or try the Airbrush option by clicking the button on the Tool Options bar. Experiment with different colors and brushes until you can’t see the original image anymore.
When you run out of space to paint, choose File, Revert to go back to the original version of the picture so you can start over.
In the real world, when you drag a brush full of paint over paint that’s already there, the result depends on the color of the paint you’re applying, how opaque it is, whether the original layer is wet or dry, and so on. In Photoshop, you can simulate all the possible combinations of two colors by using blending modes. You’ll find them in a pop-up menu on the Options bar, as shown in Figure 6.12. Blending modes apply to all tools that can draw or paint, including the Pencil, Clone Stamp, and Gradient tools, as well as the more obvious ones such as the Brush. As you can see, there are quite a few blending modes. Let’s take a quick look at the different blending modes and how they work.
Suppose that you’re working with only two colors. One is the base color, the one that’s already in place on the canvas. The second is the blend color, the one that you apply with a Painting tool . If you leave the blending mode set to Normal, you’ll see only the blend color. But if you use a different blending mode, you’ll get a third color, a result color that varies according to the method Photoshop uses to blend the first two colors.
Figures 6.13–6.37 show what happens when you choose each of the options. (The examples were painted with a firm brush in hot pink on a lime-green background, except for those with the letter R, which have the colors reversed.)
Figure 6.28. Vivid Light—Burns or dodges the colors by increasing or decreasing the contrast, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by decreasing the contrast. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by increasing the contrast.
Figure 6.29. Linear Light—Burns or dodges the colors by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness.
Figure 6.30. Pin Light—Replaces the colors, depending on the blend color. If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, pixels darker than the blend color are replaced and pixels lighter than the blend color do not change. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, pixels lighter than the blend color are replaced and pixels darker than the blend color do not change. This is useful for adding special effects to an image.
Two more blending modes that you’ll occasionally run into are Behind and Clear. When you use Behind, you can paint only on the transparent parts of a layer; you can’t paint over anything that’s already on the layer. Clear, on the other hand, makes each pixel you paint over transparent, like using the Eraser. It works with the Shape tools, the Paint Bucket tool, the Brush and Pencil tools, and the Fill and Stroke commands. It’s a convenient way to erase a specified shape or area.
All art is based on certain fundamental principles, including form, composition, and color. You spent this hour learning how to choose and paint with colors in Photoshop. We talked about the Foreground color and the Background color, and you used the Color Picker, the Color panel, the Swatches panel, and the Eyedropper to pick out colors for your work. Although it’s the most powerful method of specifying colors, the Color Picker prevents you from doing anything else until you choose a color and click OK. The Color and Swatches panels, as well as the Eyedropper tool, are always available to you while you’re working in Photoshop. We closed out the hour with a look at blending modes, the different ways two colors can combine to create a third color.
What’s your favorite color? Click the Foreground swatch on the Tools panel and see if you can specify the exact color you love best in the Color Picker. When you’re happy with it, make a note of its HSB and RGB values, then click OK. Switch to the Paint Bucket and click in the image window to fill it with your color. Now, using any of the Selection tools, make a selection of any shape in the middle of the image window and press Command-I (Mac) or Ctrl+I (Windows) to invert the color within the selected area. Press Option/Alt and click in the selected area, then click the Foreground swatch to go back to the Color Picker. How do the numbers correspond to those of the original color? Can you change the numbers to get back to the first color you chose?
Open a colorful image in Photoshop and zoom way, way in so you can see the individual pixels. Using the Eyedropper set to Point Sample in the Options bar, click a few areas of the image. Are the resulting colors what you expected to see? Now change the Eyedropper setting to 11 by 11 Average and click a few more times. Do the colors you’re getting now seem more accurate?