Pixel Training

Tutorial: Using Curves to Warm a Photo

One of the fun things to do in Photoshop is to change the color of a photo to influence the mood and give it some flavor. Using the adjustments layers is one of the best ways to doing this and the Curves Adjustment is King when it comes to adjusting color in Photoshop.

Color Cheat Sheets

When I started to adjust color in RGB many years ago I had a hard time understanding the color model and which color channels did what. I came from a print background where I did everything in CMYK and if I had to do color adjustments in an RGB file I would quickly convert it to CMYK just so I didn't have to wrestle with RGB. There were those who worked in RGB and those who worked in CMYK and they never mixed.

It wasn't until I had a RGB Color Cheat Sheet that I started to get a better understanding of color and faster at adjusting in RGB. I kept it next to my monitor and referred to it whenever I had to adjust color. It was a godsend. It allowed me to know which color channels I needed to move to get a certain color. I created an RGB Color Cheat Sheet to help you with your RGB color adjustments. Print it out and keep it handy for the next time your adjusting color. I've also added a Lab Color Cheat Sheet for those who are adventuring in to that color space too.

If you are from the print background and live in CMYK but would like to learn RGB its very simple. They actually work in opposites to RGB as you will see in the chart and if you were to write the letters down vertically you would have a simple color chart. Red is opposite to Cyan, Green opposite to Magenta and Blue opposite to Yellow. In the printing process they need to add Black (K) for contrast because of the impurities of the inks.

I have added the cheat sheets to the Downloads page. I hope you find it useful and a helpful tool.