Color Shading Techniques in Photoshop
Opening the Adobe Photoshop software may require less driving and mileage than a trip to the local paint shop, but the program offers just as many color and shading options as a bricks-and-mortar store. Found throughout the Photoshop workspace are a variety of tools, colors and menus to help you pick just the right hue, degree of color and even accompanying tints to show that pictures are far more colorful than just black and white.
Other People Are Reading
-
Paint Bucket
-
The quickest way to shade with color in Photoshop, especially large areas, is with Photoshop's "Paint Bucket" tool. The "Paint Bucket" is located halfway down the "Tools" palette on the left side of the Photoshop work area. Once you click the tool, the cursor turns into a replica of a mini tilting paint bucket. The color chosen from the "Color Picker" is the one the "Paint Bucket" shades into the selected area. The "Paint Bucket" is an imprecise way to shade in Photoshop; use it for large, clear sections rather than detailed, pixel-by-pixel work.
Opacity
-
There's a small slider bar called "Opacity" that appears on some of the tool bars affiliated with tools such as the "Paint Bucket," "Brush" and "Pencils." The "Opacity" slider determines just how much color is shaded into an image. When the bar is at 100 percent, the color shading is completely opaque -- you can't see anything under it. For example, if a color fill is added over a photo, the color completely obscures the photo. Experiment with the "Opacity" slider to see how color shading looks at different degrees, such as 50 percent opacity, letting images peek through from below, and at 10 percent opacity, where the shade is barely there and serves as more of a background.
-
Set the Shade
-
When Photoshop is opened, its work area "remembers" the settings from the last time the program was used or, if a tool hasn't yet been used, is programmed with the Photoshop defaults. A valuable tool to use with color shading is the "Color Picker." Looking like two colored squares overlapping each other at the bottom of the "Tools" pane, the "Color Picker" lets you set an exact shade. Not only does the "Color Picker" offer a ROYGBIV option for color selection, but it also houses swatches from hundreds of PANTONE paint colors. When you know the exact CMYK, RGB or PANTONE colors required for your shading needs, open the "Color Picker" and select the shade.
Gradient
-
The Photoshop software has no requirements that a shade has to consist of a single color, so when you're ready for a rainbow or multi-color shading, take advantage of the "Gradient" tool. Found by right-clicking the "Paint Bucket" tool -- the two share a single icon space -- the "Gradient" tool looks like a rectangle made of shaded lines. Pull down the gradient picker from the tool bar at the top of the work area and choose color shading options such as chrome, rainbow or custom, where you can input as many or as few shades as required for the image.
-
