Introduction to Adobe Photoshop
Justin Lemaire
With many different concepts regarding colour theory and general design principles already behind us, it is time to really get down to the nitty gritty of modern online graphic design. And there is no better piece of software to start with than Adobe Photoshop.
Granted, Photoshop is an expensive piece of software. But it is also the industry standard as far as design goes and if you can find a way to get a copy off a friend or through some other means for a reduced price, you can learn from the following posts about the basics of Photoshop and how to use it to make your designs better. While Photoshop will not single-handedly make you into a great designer, using it can allow you the chance to express yourself through art in ways that you may not have previously thought possible. People that can’t draw with a pencil can often become fantastic graphic designers in Photoshop and that is perhaps one reason why the software is so popular.
The next few series of posts will be devoted to Photoshop and will help you get a feel for how to use the software. A lot of people tend to learn Photoshop by just fooling around with the different options and playing with buttons to learn what they do and while this is a good way to learn anything, the basics that I teach you here should make that process a lot more efficient.
The Importance of Colour Theory
Justin Lemaire
I’ve probably talked as much about the history of colour theory as I’m going to during this section of posts. From here on in we will be discussing the details of colour theory at length. However, I’d just like to take the moment to discuss its importance. I’m a science student at heart, so this influences the way I try to bring subjects to the attention of others.
From the point of view of history, the history of colour theory is important because of the fact that all of modern colour theory is based on the foundations that were laid a long time ago. Understanding where those foundations come from is therefore a good idea, because it allows you to know exactly how your particular discipline evolved over time. Whether this will help you specifically in some way is not guaranteed, but it is an interesting topic nonetheless.
As to the actual theory, understanding how colour theory works is a way of training yourself to make good decisions about colour usage in the future. While an understanding of which colours look good together is something that is innate to a certain degree, studying colour theory will at the very least allow you to train a certain minimum level of taste in colours into your graphic design game.
A Brief Summary of Colour Theory History
Justin Lemaire
Here’s a brief summary of the last few posts in terms of a timeline for people that have been having trouble following the basic history.
1810: Goethe publishes Theory of Colours, in which he discusses the original RYB system of primary colours and all of the investigations that took place over the 18th century in an attempt to augment what was known about colour theory.
1839: Chevreul publishes The Law of Simultaneous Colour Contrast, which summarizes a number of important observations regarding what was known about colour theory up to that point in time.
Late 1800s: As investigation regarding the nature of colour and colour mixing continues, the original RYB system of primaries begins to be replaced by the RGB system of primaries as scientific investigations of monochromatic light begin to suggest that the latter is a better way to classify other colours.
1900s: As the electronic age begins to come about and colour televisions begin to be mass produced, the RGB system of colour completely supplants the RYB system in most areas of professional life. Later on when colour printers become popular, the CMY and CMYK systems are also introduced, allowing for much better colour printing.
The Basics of Colour Theory
Justin Lemaire
As previously mentioned, colour theory is based primarily on historical precedent with colours that was discovered through scientific means and then transposed onto the art scene. Perhaps the one exception to this idea is the basic principle of colour theory that still exists to this very day, the principle of primary colours.
Primary colours, also known by some as primitive colours, are red, yellow and blue. They are red, green and blue in computer terms, but in terms of colour mixing yellow has always been the third primary colour as opposed to green. The reason that these three colours are referred to as the primary colours is because in the 19th century it was believed that these colours could be used to form all of the other colours on Earth.
This was the earliest form of expression when it came to primary colours and it was only later through science that red, green and blue were established as being a better way to view the colour chart from a primary position. This is why there are two different sets of primary colours, one of which you learn about in art school and one of which you learn about in science class.
Introduction to Colour Theory
Justin Lemaire
The last few posts on this blog have given you the opportunity to get out of the theory of graphic design and take a look at it from the perspective of someone in the practical world that has practical concerns related to the business. While that type of look can be a sobering one, it is also something that must be done every now and then. Now that we’ve accomplished an introduction to the practical considerations of graphic design however, it is time to plough ahead into the next major topic of graphic design. That of course is colour theory.
Colour theory, simply put, is a theory centered on the idea that colours can be mixed together in order to create different and new colours that are more pleasing to the human eye in certain situations. While many people think of it as being specific to painting, the truth is that colour theory is arguably a scientific discovery through the field of optics. The discovery of what happens to light when it goes through a prism and the resulting spectrum sparked a lot of scientific inquiry into the nature of colours and a lot of what emerged was then used as a starting point to the formation of the modern artistic colour theory. It is that theory that we will be covering over the next few weeks at Concept Wizards.
Value, Colour and Graphic Design
Justin Lemaire
Value has already been discussed in a previous post, but just to refresh your memory it is a design term that refers to the level of darkness or lightness of an area within an image. Value is actually a relative term in its colloquial use, but when it is expanded to mean different parts of the spectrum, you are now talking about colour which is a very different beast to tackle.
Colour has three different properties to it: hue, colour value and intensity. While these terms might seem boring to you right now, bear with me because this is stuff you are going to need to know later on when you tackle more advanced concepts of graphic design.
Hue is a property of colour that refers to the actual colour being reflected as a wavelength of light. Therefore, when you are talking about primary colours, secondary colours and other such colour types, what you are discussing is the hue of the colour in question. Value, as is true with the original definition, refers to the relative darkness or lightness of the hue in question. Intensity refers to the amount of black or white has been mixed in with the hue, with a pure hue being a colour that has not had any black or white added to it. Intensity is also sometimes referred to as saturation.
We will deal with more terms regarding colour in the next post and then we will come back to it later on when colour theory is discussed in more detail.
