Exploring the maze of palette

Color in a photographic work has a vital role in the right color, regardless of the quality of the picture or emotional rendering, have an excellent effect, but in the face of an original film, I am afraid, whether novice or veteran, will have some hesitation: This picture should be how to color?

How do I mix it? This is a difficult problem for most photographers, and before we solve this problem, we should understand the true meaning and function of color for photos.

　Color--The mood of the picture

The function of color not only can enrich the content of the picture, its more important function is to inject emotion into the work.

The color has the warm and cold, but the different warm and cold feeling has the very important function in the photographic emotion expression. As emotional creatures of ours, color can evoke our inner resonance, from the macroscopic point of view, see cool colors, such as blue to give us the feeling is cold calm, see warm colors, such as red to give us the feeling is hot enthusiasm; on the microscopic view, the different color of the picture will change the feeling of the viewer, can say, Each color has its own unique color emotion.

　Showy or elegant

In addition to warm and cold, the color of the gorgeous and elegant also affect the expression of the content of the picture. Generally speaking, the gorgeous color is easier to express lively, enthusiastic and stimulating emotions, simple and elegant color is easier to express the quiet, distant and lonely emotions, we are in the late adjustment of a piece of work, need to cooperate with the picture content and want to express the mood to decide the picture is gorgeous or elegant.

In the screen, the color of the gorgeous or elegant, to a large extent, decided by the saturation of color and brightness, the higher the saturation, the more beautiful the screen, while the lower the saturation, the screen is more elegant; brightness is the same, the higher the brightness of the screen, the more beautiful, the lower the brightness, the more elegant screen.

Long exposure to the flow of clouds, silk water, the sun with a golden reef, the vast expanse of the sea to show incisively and vividly. In the gorgeous color performance, the Golden Reef and the blue sea water, the sky produced a strong contrast, so that the image more impact, so that we can see the picture of the sea water impact on the rock on the magnificent boldness.

and the screen into black and white, color immediately become elegant and clean, as if a retired warrior, calm became the main theme of the screen, triangular reef with the flow of clouds will be the sight of the distant, distant and impressive infectious.

This is the same picture of the color in the gorgeous and elegant show the different emotions, you can see, although the content does not change, but the two show the mood is completely different, so in the adjustment before the decision to color gorgeous or elegant, also has a decisive role.

After the rain of the fire cloud is the nature of the world's beautiful scenery, the golden yellow fire clouds and blue sky form a strong contrast of warm and cold, in this case, the use of gorgeous high saturation can better enhance the color of the screen, giving viewers a strong visual impact.

Flat as the mirror of the water, open sky, distant Woods Mountains, minimalist content and minimalist composition, coupled with pure blue tone, the screen shows the ethereal and calm, in the low saturation of the color of the elegant, this emotion to express more extreme.

To the later color adjustment, in my opinion generally divides into two kinds: seeks the nature and surpasses the nature.

　Looking for the true colors

Looking for the nature, as the name implies is the picture inside the scene, the nature of things as far as possible to show out, or can also be called restore true colors. Because the camera photographic components, exposure, parameter settings, resulting in the original film we shot color often and the real scene of the color is very different, looking for the true color is through the later adjustment, find the real colors. Of course, the adjusted color is not the same as the true color, to a certain extent can also be based on the needs of the screen to fine-tune the tone, but the adjustment amplitude is not large, overall is still close to the real color.

It is not difficult to find true colors, the emphasis is on the control of various adjustment parameters. Because of the increasing latitude of the camera's photosensitive elements, the original film is generally not enough in contrast and saturation, in most cases, the contrast and saturation can be quickly close to the color.

The color of nature always likes to hide and seek with us, many times, the color that has vanished in our eyes can be found out in the camera. This is a picture taken by a blue moment, can see, the left side of the original film, The Sun Afterglow is about to end, the dim as if at any time will dissipate, and in the later adjustment, increase the natural saturation, the afterglow again bloom, the golden and blue sky form a strong contrast, the charm of the blue moment is so.

As we said earlier, more and more high camera latitude will make the original piece of the shot ash, in the backlight and other special circumstances more obvious. In this photo of the original film, the screen color saturation through the low, the overall picture of the reason for the lack of color is gray, lacking vitality, and in the late, just to enhance the contrast and saturation, the other does not make any changes, the screen will be a brand-new.

Looking for the color should be in the later color palette used most widely, in my photos taken, occupy more than 70%, the nature of the color charm can always let us deeply fascinated, looking for the most beautiful true colors, in fact, is already the most difficult to master the color palette.

Beyond the True Colors

Beyond the nature is more like looking for a breakthrough in nature, according to personal emotions, screen content, the use of works to adjust the most appropriate color. Compared to the search for character, more freedom than the original, most of the creative color is the latter, but at the same time, beyond the nature is more challenging, we can find the right color is the most critical, which determines the final color adjustment success or failure.

Said here, in fact, the problem then returned to the color and emotion above, beyond the color itself is to break through the picture, let the emotion Express.

Under normal circumstances, in the adjustment beyond the original color, we can do to find the true colors, and then to color, such benefits can be more understanding of the color of the screen, in the adjustment after the contrast with the original color.

Compared with the blue tone, purple is not lack of blue to the viewer's quiet, distant emotions, at the same time appear more mysterious mystery, in nature, we rarely see the existence of purple scenery, accustomed to see the blue, green scenery works, a glimpse of purple will give a novel sensory stimulation, so that the image more profound impression.

This photo's palette process is: In camera raw will be tonal purple, and then use the color separation tool, in the high light and shadow, respectively, add purple, and finally into Photoshop to use the optional color alone, and purple in sharp contrast.

With the development of the later color matching, there are many different styles of color palette in some degree. The direction of the later color palette is "Japanese tone", also known as "small clear tone", the Japanese tone emphasizes light sense, which is why the Japanese system, the Japanese color is more popular in recent years, the photographic style to elegant, fresh, The features of plain nature have won the love of many photographers.

In this color palette, the first for the screen to increase the emphasis on cyan and white, cyan and white for the screen to increase the sense of permeability, emphasizing the sun, with scattered-style composition, so that the overall picture more natural relaxed.

This photo palette process is: the use of curve tools, in the channel to choose the blue alone significantly increase, and finally return to the RGB channel, the right amount of ascension.

In the later color, the use of the work is also the key to the direction of the color palette, you can see this adjusted for the powder tone of the screen, perhaps a lot of people will feel familiar, this hue and city screen is the most real estate business advertising screen. The original image of the blue tone in the cool, giving viewers more is a kind of alienation, calm mood, and adjust to warm in the powder tone, then give the viewer is more intimate, warm mood, to a great extent stimulate the viewer's desire to achieve the sales of advertising, this is the photographic color palette in the use of typical cases.

The color palette for this photo is: First add a layer of magenta photo filter (Image adjustment photo Filter) to the screen, then open the file in camera raw, and use the hue separation tool to add pink to the high light and shadow respectively.

Category:

• PS Palette Tutorial