Below is an explanation about the use of colour:
Smith wrote:
>
> Firstly I am so glad I found this group. The layouts shown here have been
> great.
>
> One question - how do you all work out the colours that go into a layout.
> Although I love all the layouts I see, some of them seem to be more
> memorable than others. The colours seem to go with each other.
>
> Is this something that we are born with and therefore either you have that
> knack or you don't :-(
>
> I would like to learn about colour combinations, but find the colour wheel
> confusing. Anyone got a simpler way of combining colours?
This link is an interesting one:http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/alaia/354/tutorials/matting/
It describes how to derive mat colors for a framed picture from the image itself. I believe that exactly similar ideas apply to finding colors for a layout in which an image is to appear.
I'm not sure why color wheels would be confusing. Perhaps part of the issue is that color wheels in software are not the same as those conventionally used by artists. For artists red and green are opposites, as are blue and orange and also violet and yellow. You'll see that is not the way PSP color wheels are laid out since yellow, not orange, is across from blue.
To learn more about the artists' color wheel you might Google for "Johannes Itten", who popularized the concept in the early 1900s. He also devised various methods of combining colors and contrasting colors some of which are summarized briefly here:
http://www.worqx.com/color/itten.htm. Another concept to search is "color harmony", which involves using the color wheel to choose color combinations such as analogous, complementary or split complementary.
The other places to find information about how to use colors together are graphic design links, including university class lecture notes that are sometimes available on line and essays or tutorials by individual designers on their web sites. One example of the latter tutorial (though by no means the only one) can be found here http://www.worqx.com/color/color_basics.htm.
I would try to read several tutorials of this type since their authors are not always clear or explicit about exactly what
they mean so that reading a second person talking about pretty much the same thing can help understanding considerably.
One slightly confusing aspect of color is that artists use a different language than computer people for describing color. The former say "value" and the latter say "brightness" (or "luminance" or "luma" or "lightness" or various related things depending on how anal retentive or knowledgeable they are. Similarly an artist's "shade" is PSP's "darken and desaturate", while and artist's "tint" is PSP's "lighten and desaturate". A lot of these differences relate to artists making colors by mixing pigments (colors from a subtractive process) and computers making colors by mixing light (colors from an additive process).
In the end there is no simple recipe book for color. If there were there would be no great art and we could all just pick some colors from a table of colors. However there are principles in designing with color which it pays to know and practice. In case it seems like there is too much to learn you can console yourself with the thought that in cross-cultural studies of color naming people generally restrict themselves to mentioning no more than 14 colors and there is widespread agreement on what those colors are (though there are some cultures that have a color we call "grue" since they don't differentiate green and blue as different colors :)Here are a few online color wheels that you just pick your main color, and ones that complement it will follow
- http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html
- http://www.colorcache.com/colorpicker.shtml
- http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-schemes.html
- http://www.jumbo-psp.com/PSP-for-Fun/images/Color%20tabel.htm
Here are a few more links.
Start with one color in RGB format and get 11 more colors to harmonize with it. Examples under entry area.
http://www.easyrgb.com/harmonies.php
Pull two colors from any painting and mix them with black and white:
http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/web_imitates_art.html
Online blender with black and white for above link:
http://slayeroffice.com/tools/color_palette/
MonicaW
I have found that my layouts have gone to a new level since I invested in Color Schemer http://www.colorschemer.com/
I do not have an eye for color and having a program helps me pick out colors that go well together.
Canay
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