Color Theory Basics EVERY Photographer MUST know!

quick questions what is the opposite of red is it green or is it cyan do you think luminosity and brightness are the same thing which do you think is heavier what do you think is the difference between tint shade and dawn and why is the letter K used for black in CMYK hey my name is Sid and in this video I'm going to demystify the language of color and help you take absolute control of it in Photoshop you see we are all taught to accept certain truths about color but have you ever taken the time to examine where do these beliefs come from and why to understand the present sometimes we have to go back to the past so let's go back to the time when the color wheel was invented back in the 17th century when a plague broke out in England a young man made several discoveries was still under quarantine as school was closed up although his laws of gravity motion or calculus may not be of great importance to us as artists his discoveries in the colour spectrum is still the foundation of today's color wheel yes I'm talking about Isaac Newton taking a prism he held it up against a slit on his door and projected the beam onto a piece of white paper his experiments led to the theory that red yellow and blue were the primary colors from which all other colors are derived during this time most of the people thought that color was made up of light and darkness including a German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe while Newton is credited with the invention of color wheel it was Goethe who introduced the concept to associate different colors with emotions for example if you look closely at his color wheel in the area with yellow you can see the word good which means good according to him yellow was bright like the Sun and exciting so it stood for good cotys perception to color was taken to the next level by a Swiss painter johannes itten who created strategies for successful color combinations and is impact on our mood leading to the concept of color harmony and interestingly goatest color wheel is still used to this day to create color harmonies now let's see how the modern color wheel came into existence in the 18th century a German painter Jacob Christoph LeBlanc invented a three color printing process to create invitations of his paintings he thought he could combine the primary colors of the traditional color wheel that is red yellow and blue to make full color prints which he did but the mixture of all three colors was a muddy brown and not pure black so to add some punch to the darker shades he came up with the four color process printing in which the fourth color was black and this also helped him cut costs for the rest of the dyes now what is interesting is that his original color model ryb became ryb k where k is for black also K stands for ki as in the key plate that was used to align all other three placed during printing since the letter B was already taken by blue black was denoted by the letter K to avoid confusion over the years the blue and red inks were tweaked to a certain process blue and printed red to provide a larger variety of tones and even though the ink colors changed the names didn't and if you look at process blue it is in fact cyan so it seems that the name cyan and magenta came much later and even in the mid twentieth century it was still referred to as blue and red and even now if you take a printout of cyan and show it to a known art related family or friend guess what the answer will be blue right so we might never know the true origin of CMYK now with the invention of color displays red green and blue were chosen as the primary colors as they matched the three color sensitive cones in the retina of the human eye you see paper reflects light and each ink you put on it will reduce the light that would have otherwise been reflected in other words it subtracts one color from white and that's why CMYK is known as a subtractive color system as it is used for printing on paper however unlike paper that reflects light the colors that we see on a digital device are created by combining colors with a transmission of light from the backlit screen in Photoshop if we start with darkness or black when you add a red brushstroke and then blue on top of it and change the blend mode to screen y screen blend mode the name says it all it adds colors to create new colors the way display screens do and if I create another layer and add green on it as soon as I said the blend mode to screen we get white with a red green and blue colors mix that's why RGB is known as the additive color system take a look at this image for example you can see I have separated it into three layers first one is red second layer is green and then blue so every single image in Photoshop or any screen you actually use is made up of only three colors red green and blue and if you take a look at the black and white gradient you will see that even what we've perceived as luminosity is actually made up of red green and blue colors and this is completely opposite to the subtractive color mixing of CMYK to do any color correction in Photoshop you will have to memorize the RGB color wheel where red is opposite of cyan green of magenta and yellow of blue this is also known as the CMYK color wheel because CMYK predates RGB by many years but it's one and the same thing so which color wheel should be used to create color harmonies in my opinion there is no color wheel that can fully describe the complexities of how we perceive color from light remember that color wheels are merely a guideline and it's ultimately up to you to define the implications of your color palette now before we even get into color grading or harmonies it is very important for you to understand and distinguish the three characteristics of color hue saturation and brightness a hue is a color in its purest state with full hundred percent saturation hue is generally what we referred to as the name of the color so red orange blue and green these are all hues also did you notice the hues are labeled by degrees this is because they correspond to their location on the circular color wheel when you bend the spectrum of colors into a circle you join the red ends what you get is a color wheel hues can produce different colors when it's tinted shaded or toned adding white to a color is known as tinting so any color that is lighter than the original hue would be its dent adding black to a color is known as shading so we can get a variety of shades of a hue when mixed with increasing amounts of black adding gray to a color is known as toning this is used to desaturate a hue saturation or chroma is the purity or intensity of the color and the saturation means a color is close to neutral gray you can desaturate a color by mixing it with grey or it's complementary color from the RGB color wheel brightness or value refers to the lightness or darkness of a color now don't get Diskin fused with luminosity or lightness luminosity is the perceived brightness of a color ranging from black to white on a gray scale for example when you see the color yellow and blue at 100% brightness the yellow color seems brighter this is because it appears to be closer to white right so if I open the color picker properties and choose the color yellow you can see the brightness in the HSB section which stands for hue saturation and brightness is 100 percent but the luminosity value as shown in the L or lightness of the L a B color mode is 98 and if I choose the blue color now with a hundred percent brightness the luminosity value is only 30 this is because our eyes perceive their brightness to be different which is shown in the luminosity take a look at the tonal values provided below each color even though they are at 100% brightness and in the Photoshop color picker if I select the red hue and as I move it along it's lighter tints see how the saturation percentage decreases while the luminosity value goes on increasing and from the you if I move along the shades of red see how the brightness percentage is decreasing and also bringing the luminosity value down with it so the luminosity is controlled by both brightness and saturation of a hue now color harmony is a combination of simultaneously used colors that look pleasing to the eye and evoke certain feelings mood or emotions here are some of the most important color schemes based on the traditional color monochromatic colors come in shades of a single color they are created by adding white black or grey to a single hue to create multiple tints shades and tones complementary colors live opposite to each other on the color wheel this color scheme can produce the maximum color contrast analogous colors light directly next to each other on the color wheel since the colors don't have the contrast and tension of the complementary colors they create a calm viewing experience cryotic colors uses mainly three evenly spaced color around the color wheel producing the points of a triangle for example red yellow and blue are triadic colors tetra dick colours consists of two complementary pairs with their four colors forming a rectangle on the color wheel the square color scheme has four complementary colors evenly spaced around the color wheel the split complementary color scheme is made up of a key color and two colors adjacent to its direct complementary now I'm sure you must have heard of these color schemes more than a hundred times but really anyone can memorize them or refer to it at any time however the real test for many fail is how to distribute these colors to make your color palette appear cohesive to understand how to do this you need to grasp the concept of weight just like others can have temperature they can also have weight weight of a color is controlled by size or proportion in which it's used and it's human asti if we have two circles one big and one small both black you know the first circle appears to be heavy this is because its size or proportion is bigger if the big circle gets a very light red tint and the small one has a dark red shade small one appears to be heavy because the big seems to be transparent and light when both the circles of the same size that are not so obvious you can check their luminosity values in photoshop color picker to see which one is lighter once you distinguish and understand color characteristics and how to distribute it you can control the direction of how the viewer will view your image here are a few tips to create stunning color harmony the key color is the most important and predominant color in the image choose the key color with right combination of hue brightness and saturation to set the tone and mood of your image there are no absolute rules for color selection the perception of color is dependent on how it is used in your visual once the key color is set pick the other colors with the help of the color wheel and distribute the colors to create tension or harmony by controlling the proportion saturation and brightness remember the warm and cool grays communicate with each other and blend better within the space while the highly saturated colors fight for the space color theory is not only for painters or graphic designers it is very important for photographers and researchers ideally color concepts should be used right from the pre-production stage but even if not researchers can complement the subjects colors by pushing the neutral Gray's to its complementary tints and shades for better transitions now I've loaded you with a ton of information and you're probably not going to process it all right now so make sure to save this video for future reference and guys if you're a working professional make sure to check out our online store at Stanley peg comm for the best Photoshop retouching and color grading tools and see if it can help your business also please do subscribe to the channel and make sure to ring that notification bill to be notified as soon as any new video releases see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: StyleMyPic

Views: 238,930

Keywords: color wheel, color theory basics, color theory tutorial, color scheme, complimentary colors, master color theory, advanced color theory, photoshop color grading, understanding color grading, understanding color in photography, color harmony, color harmonies, color harmony tips, what is color harmony, mixing color harmony, #PWX, #SMP, RGB vs CMYK, CMYK vs RGB, Additive and Subtractive Color, Color psychology, balancing colors, color proportions, RGB CMYK difference

Id: R8qHyOFOvxI

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2019