We know the feeling you get the first time you run Photoshop. To
learn it
all might take a lifetime. But you don’t need to know it all. Learn
as you go!
We will try to make your life easier and cover only those features
we use
and go from simple to advanced features.
We cover Photoshop the same way a new user would begin using it. We
start simple and grow from there. On the other hand, we assume that
you
have worked on some tutorials and understand the Photoshop basics:
Menus and Tools.
There are different color models supported in Photoshop. The main
four
are:
• RGB
• LAB
• CMYK
• Grayscale
RGB is the most commonly used color mode today in digital
photography.
Our workflow will be performed mainly in this mode.
RGB is an additive color model. All colors are built from three components;
Red, Green and Blue. A triple (0, 0, 0) defines black and (255, 255,
255) is a
bright white (should rarely occur in any image).
We will later discuss that RGB values do not define absolute colors,
but are
device dependent instead.
The CIE-LAB color mode is important for understanding color
management. There are also some interesting techniques that use the
LAB
mode. The interesting aspect of LAB is that it separates color (chroma,
A+B) from the detail/brightness (luminance, L) in images.
Although this is an important color model for the printing press it
is not
used much in digital photography. Even if inkjet printers are
technically
CMYK (most are even CcMmYK with additional light Cyan and Magenta
inks) printers, their interface is strictly RGB to the user.