My Octopus Teacher
My Octopus Teacher is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen.
It’s the kind of inspiration we need more of in these trying times.
I can’t recommend it more highly.
A Brief History Of The Color Wheel
Newton
In 1666 the first color wheel was invented in by Sir Isaac Newton best known for his theories on gravity, motion, and light. (His theories on light are detailed in his seminal volume Optiks). Newton used a triangular prism to split a beam of white into a rainbow, proving that light is composed of a spectrum of hues – ROYGBIV. When he wrote down the different hues he made an influential decision to create a circle by connecting the opposite ends of the spectrum red and violet. (Unsurprisingly, if you spin the color wheel quickly, you’ll see white as the colors blend together.) Newton believed colors shared harmonious relationships with one another and went so far as to assign musical notes to each hue. Within this color wheel he rotated geometric shapes to identify different types of relationships.
Runge
In 1807 painter Philip Otto Runge reimagined the color wheel as a color sphere by painting a color globe using three primaries plus black and white, complete with cross-sectioning.
Munsell
In 1989 Albert Henry Munsell created a three-dimensional model of color in the form of a central cylinder graded from black to white surrounded by a ring of possible hues.
Adobe
Adobe’s Color Wheel (Window > Color), one of the most used color wheels today, advances this tradition by refining the arrangement of complementary hues from subtractive (pigment or dye) to additive (light) ones, making color theory more precise. While sadly it does not offer a three-dimensional model, it offers other two dimensional graphs, including its classic square that plots all permutations lightness and saturation of a single hue plus a side-by-side rainbow slider to change the hue and gives numerical values for a given hue in four different color spaces – HSB, LAB, RGB, and CMYK.
Chromix ColorThink
You can find virtual 3D color wheels in programs like Apple’s Color Sync which is designed to show and compare the shape of different color spaces or in Chromix’s Color which can also plot an image within the virtual volume. These models are even more informative because they show that color is not spherical but shaped more like a teardrop. One day we may be able to plot various shapes within them to design new color relationships and to more precisely identify the color relationships within existing images.
Follow up with Why Painters’ And Photographers’ Color Wheels Differ.
Read more in my Color Theory resources.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
All The Words Of The Rainbow
The language used to describe color has a long storied history; sometimes tied to its method of manufacture and sometimes tied to mental or emotional associations. What language lacks in precision it makes up for in expression. It’s great for poetry and marketing.
Contrast this with the numerical language of HSL (i.e. 13/48/76), which is better for precise identifying and communicating color.
Enjoy exploring this collection if you’re trying to find out what color a word refers to or if you’re looking for the right word to describe a color.
Red
apple, beet, blooming, brick, blood, blush, burgundy, burning, carmine, cerise, cinnabar, claret, cherry, cochineal, coral, crimson, damask, fire engine, fire hydrant, flame, florid, fox, garnet, glowing, gules, lipstick, madder, maroon, pink, poppy, rose, rouge, rubicund, ruby, rufous, rust, russet, sanguine, scarlet, strawberry, tomato, vermillion, wine
Pink
amaranth, blush, bubblegum, carnation, champagne, coral, crepe, flamingo, flesh, fuscia, hot, lemonade, lipstick, mary kay, neon, peach, powder, puce, punch, rose, salmon, taffy, tickle me, watermelon
Orange
apricot, basketball, burnt, cantaloupe, carrot, chanterelle, chestnut, citrus, copper, coral, creamsicle, flaming, fiery, ginger, gold, marmalade, merigold, minium, monarch, neopolitan, orangatan, papaya, peach, pumpkin, salmon, salamander, sandstone, sherbert, soda, starfish, straw, sunflower, sunrise, squash, tangerine, tiger, yam
Yellow
amber, banana, blonde, ash blonde, bottle blonde, strawberry blonde, bumblebee, butter, buttermilk, butterscotch, canary, corn, cream, daffodil, dijon, egg nog, flaxen, gamboge, golden, goldenrod, honey, imperial, indian, lemon, macaroon, medallion, mustard, naples, neon, ocher, orpiment, parmesan, pineapple, pollen, sandy, saffron, straw, topaz, tow-colored, tuscan, wheaten
Green
absinthe, acid, apple, army, artichoke, avocado, aquamarine, basil, bosky, bottle, celadon, chartreuse, clover, copper, crocodile, fern, grass, emerald, evergreen, fir, forest, grass, jade, jungle, juniper, kale, kelly, leaf, lime, lincoln, lush, malachite, mint, moss, neon, olive, parakeet, pea, pear, pickle, pine, sage, sap, sea, seafoam, seaweed, shamrock, spinach, spring, terre verte, verdant, verdigris, vert, viridian
Blue
admiral, agean, arctic, antarctic, aquamarine, azure, baby, berry, beryl, bice, bright, beryl, cambridge, cerulean, cobalt, copenhagen, cornflower, cupreous, cyan, cyanotype, deep, denim, egyptian, electrix, erubescent, frost, ice, incarnadine, indigo, kyanite, lapis lazuli, midnight, navy, opal, oxford, peacock, persian, prussian, robin’s egg, royal, sapphire, saxe, sea, slate, sky, spruce, steel, teal, titian, turkish, turquoise, ultramarine, vivid
Indigo
azure, blueberry, deep, glastum, indigotin, midnight, navy, prussian, ultramarine, woad, zaffre
Violet
amaranthine, amethyst, archil, berry, boysenberry, eggplant, grape, heather, heliotrope, iris, jam, lavender, lilac, mauve, magenta, mulberry, orchid, periwinkle, perse, plum, pomegranite, purple, raisin, royal, sangria, violet, violaceous, wine
Brown
allspice, auburn, bay, bran, beige, biscuit, bister, bottle, brick, brindle, bronze, brunette, buff, burnt sienna, burnt umber, cafe au lait, camel, caramel, carob, cayenne, cedar, chestnut, chocolate, cider, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, copper, drab, dun, dust, ecru, espresso, fallow, fawn, ginger, gingerbread, granola, greige, hazel, henna, hickory, kasha, khaki, leather, liver, madiera, mahogany, mocha, mousy, mud, mushroom, nut, nutmeg, oak, oatmeal, ochre, peanut, pecan, penny, puce, russet, rust, saddle, sallow, sand, sepia, sorrel, spice, tan, taupe, tawny, terra-cotta, toast, tortilla, umber, wheaten, whey, wood
White
alabaster, albino, allysum, antique, ash, bone, bleach, bright, brilliant, chalk, chantilly, chiffon, cloud, coconut, cotton, daisy, dove, eggshell, gesso, ghost, putty, hoary, isabelline, ivory, lead, lace, lily, linen, lucent, milk, mother of pearl, parchment, pearl, porcelain, powder, pure, rice, salt, snow, swan, star, titanium, vanilla, whisper, winter
Gray
aluminum, argentine, ash, cinereal, charcoal, cloud, coin, cool, cove, clam, dolphin, dove, dusky, elephant, fog, fossil, frost, graphite, grizzled, gunmetal, gunpowder, harbor, hippopotamus, hoary, lead, iron, metal, mouse, neutral, nickle, oyster, payne’s, pearl, pebble, peppery, pewter, platinum, pigeon, powder, rhino, rice, sere, silver, tin, sidewalk, slate, smoke, squirrel, steel, stone, thunder, warm
Black
atramentous, calciginous, charcoal, coal, crepuscular, crow, dusky, ebony, flint, grease, ink, kohl, lamp, lava, jet, leather, mars, melanoid, metal, midnight, obsidian, oil, onyx, piceous, pitch, raven, sable, slate, soot, spider, stygian, tartarean, tenebrous
Read more in my Color Theory resources.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
How To Be More Creative
In this conversation with Understand Photography‘s Peggy Farren …
You can enjoy listening to many of my thoughts on creativity.
Try my suggestions and I guarantee you’ll start being more creative.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
Adventures In Ice – Webinar
If you missed it the recording can now be viewed above.
The Camden Conference and Camden Public Library host internationally renowned photographer John Paul Caponigro, who will share his images from six voyages to Greenland and contrasts them with twelve voyages to Antarctica including his personal adventure stories, conversations with scientists, and facts about the region.
Live via Zoom on September 15 at 6:30 pm.
How To Find The Infinite Possibilities One Image Contains
Any image can support an unimaginable number of color variations. So how do you find them? Systematically make many variations. Will it take a great deal of time? It will take a little time but not a lot (maybe five or ten minutes) – and it will take less time and you’ll more thoroughly explore the possibilities if you do this systematically. You’ll find this exploration will be time very well spent. Illuminating more possibilities than you imagined will help you find more creative and personally fulfilling solutions for your images. You’ll deepen your understanding of and personal relationship with color thus your images and by extension yourself. Those who view your works will feel the difference. I can tell you from many years of personal experience that it has made all the difference in the world to me. It will do the same for you.
Before you begin …
Start With Your Strongest Image(s)
When you’re processing a number of related images it’s likely that you’ll find the solutions you choose for the strongest image in the set will apply to the others, with minor modifications. It’s rare to have images in a series with widely divergent color palettes.
Plan To Make Many Copies
Don’t try and remember all of these possibilities; there will be too many to remember.
Instead make copies that you can make side-by-side comparisons with. (In Lightroom make virtual copies. Alternately, in Photoshop duplicate files.) It will help if you organize these copies into Collections in Lightroom or organize them (possibly with folders) in Bridge/Photoshop.
Find The Big Picture, Sweat The Details Later
Ditch your perfectionist tendencies – for now. Worry more about the moves you’re making in color that the tools you’re using to make them with. Don’t get lost in the details, instead focus on the big picture. Avoid getting distracted by one exciting possibility. Instead of rushing to finished results and committing to the most obvious solution too quickly, spend a few minutes exploring more possibilities hoping to find better solutions. More often than not, you will.
So what’s the best way to do this?
Proceed In This Order – Saturation, Luminosity, Hue
With only three elements of color, you wouldn’t think there could be so many possibilities, but the very things that generate them also make finding them manageable. You’ll quickly find the major moves that can be made if you make changes in these three elements in this order – saturation, luminosity, and hue.
The Best Strategy For Creating Successful Color Palettes
The vast majority of resources you’ll find for creating successful color palettes, whether in print or online, will catalog a great number of compelling color combinations with some rhyme but little reason. When you look at them, not understanding the logic behind their choices, it’s tempting to think that anything goes. (And it might in certain contexts and for the specific reasons. But which ones?) Sometimes they drift into color psychology but quickly become so subjective they lose all sense of objectivity or universality. The best of them identify visual dynamics that you can use to exert some influence over the direction takes in and gives to your images.
What I’m offering you here is different. This is a strategy. Not a rule but a tool.
Use high contrast in one element of color, medium contrast in a second, and low contrast in the third.
It could be simplified to, make one element of color dominant by consistently putting more contrast in it than the other two.
With only three elements of color, this rubric offers you three main palettes that you can draw endless permutations from plus two notable exceptions.
When you reflect on your choice of palette, you’ll gain insights into the themes contained of your images.
Before I detail these five palettes …
It helps to understand some of the dynamics of color. Good things come in threes; there are three types of color, three elements of color, and three kinds of contrast.
3 Types Of Color
There are three types of color – ideal, ambient, and synthetic.
How To Use Photoshop's Free Transform Tool
Julianne Kost shares tips and tricks for transforming images like a pro in Photoshop.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
5 Reasons to use Smart Filters – Julianne Kost
Julianne Kost shares 5 Reasons to use Smart Filters showing you how to edit, mask, stack, move, duplicate, and change blend mode and the opacity of Smart Filters.
Read my 4 Reasons To Use Smart Filters.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.
My Conversation With John Cornicello, Photo Luminaries & Alumni
In this freewheeling conversation I range widely through my life in photography, my influences, and my projects (in particular what I’ve been doing during quarantine). Seth Resnick, Jeff Schewe, and Michael Newler pipe in profusely. Seth embarrasses me with whacky candids at the end.
Find past Cornicello conversations here.
Find upcoming Cornicello conversations here.