Week 2

This week we learned more on how to use Photoshop, including the options, tools and colors that we have the choose from.


Chapter 2

Visible spectrum = the range of colors that we can see.
Gamut = the range of colors that a device can produce.

The main color modes are:

• RGB (red, green, blue) - used to generate colors digitally; displayed on a monitor screen; additive (largest range)
• CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) - used for print; subtractive (smallest range)
• pantone - used for textile

Here are the ranges of these color modes:

Codes for colors (red, green, blue):

• (0,0,0) : black
• (255,255,255) : white
• (255,0,0) : red
• (0,255,0) : green
• (0,0,255) : blue
• (255,255,0) : yellow
• (0,255,255) : cyan
• (255,0,255) : magenta

Other color modes are:

• index - like RGB, but smaller range
• grayscale - no colors; 8 bits
• bitmap - only black and white; 1 bit

As for the tools that we learned on Photoshop, we learned about the History palette and changing the image size.

History palette - lists recently executed commands with the most recent at the bottom. It is used to undo multiple commands. 

Photoshop only saves up to 20 commands by default.

To change the image size, go to image > image size (to change both the screen size and print size).


Chapter 3

This chapter consists of more practical things, mostly Photoshop tools.

Options bar - controls how painting tools interact with the image (the bar on the top).

Blending modes - how paint interacts with the pixels underneath the painting area.
Opacity - visibility of color, pattern, etc.

Painting tools work on pixels (raster images), not vector images. They include:

• brush tool
• gradient tool
• history brush / art history brush
• color replacement tool

Gradient = smooth transition between two different colors. They include linear, radial, angular radial, reflected and diamond.

Last but not least, the eraser tool.
There are multiple different eraser tools:

• background - paints with background color
• normal - makes area transparent
• magic - automatically erases area with similar colors

After these two chapters, we were given a tutorial to do.
This is the image I worked with:

We learned how to change color modes, change canvas size, crop, use the gradient and paint bucket tool, use the brush tool and set the hue.

This is my final image: