- Say you've just finished coloring an illustration
that you've been working on, and it looks good.
But still, you're wanting to push the look of things
just a little further, maybe find a way to
make something about it a little more special or different.
So you're not exactly sure what you're looking for,
but you'll know it when you see it, it's that kind of thing.
Well, let me show you a handful of Photoshop tools
and treatments that'll not only let you consider,
you know, some different color solutions,
but it'll also give you a chance to
bring extra feelings of sophistication
and dimension into your color scheme.
Now, this illustration was originally created
in Illustrator, which is usually where
I create images of this kind.
The reason why I've imported it into Photoshop
is so I could take advantage of a couple of this program's
really useful color manipulation tools and treatments.
I'll begin by adding a hue and saturation
adjustment layer right over my illustration.
Then I'll go to the layers control panel,
and move its hue slider left and right.
This gives me a good look at some different color schemes.
I can raise or lower the intensity
of my colors with the saturation slider.
Also, I can use the panel's pulldown menu
and its eyedropper tool to select a specific color,
like the powder blue in the women's shirts,
and try out hue, saturation,
and lightness variation for just this color.
And like there, I like that.
Here's my original, and here's the newer version.
I have to say, there's something about this new
muted color scheme that I like better.
It looks a little more restrained and
sophisticated to my eye.
Next, how about I push the look of this illustration's
color scheme a little further out there.
I'll add another hue and saturation adjustment layer.
I'm going to pull the saturation of everything way down.
After that, I'll use the brush tool to paint into
the adjustment layer's mask, and thereby
blocking its muting effects
at the center of the illustration.
If you look over to the layers panel,
and at the layer mask inside our most
recent hue and saturation adjustment layer,
you'll see where I painted my dark,
soft-edge effect blocking circle.
Here's the image with the new layer
turned off, and back on again.
I also like using solid color fill layers
to tint and transform color schemes.
I'll add one of these fill layers,
choose a pea green from the swatches panel,
I'm going to click okay and then go to the layer's
pulldown menu and set its blend mode to color burn,
which sounds like a lot of steps right there,
but it becomes pretty easy and quick
once you start working with these
kinds of fill and adjustments layers.
Next, I'll once again use the brush tool,
and I'll paint into this fill layer's mask
to block its effect in the inner area
of the illustration like this.
Now, I'm going to group
all these adjusting layers, just so I can
easily turn them all off and show you
a before and an after.
We've definitely come a long way from
where we started out.
It's quite a bit going on here than before,
and it really didn't take us all that long to get here,
thanks to a few of Photoshop's color altering treatments.
And we could've kept right on going with our adjustment
layers and look into a whole bunch of
different color outcomes, and I'll tell you what,
with digital tools and treatments like these
at our disposal, that wouldn't have taken all that long.
So think about it the next time
you're wrapping up work on an illustration,
an infographic, or even an entire layout,
consider altering and upgrading the look
of your piece's coloring through
Photoshop effects like these.