What are you adding to Photoshop with HVC Color Composer? This product is an
enhanced version of Photoshop's color picker. You can switch between this
enhanced color picker and Photoshop's basic color picker any time you want
through Photoshop's preferences. (see program installation
notes to find out how to do this)
The HVC Color Composer has all of the features as the Photoshop color picker,
in the same basic layout, so it will be completely familiar to any Photoshop
user while still offering the advantages. You open the color picker the same way
you always do in Photoshop. Just click the foreground color swatch, either one
of them, shown here:
Now on to what's new. The biggest addition to the picker is the Master Colors
Perceptual HVC Space. This is a new color space, resting along side the other
spaces accessible through Photoshop. You'll notice off to the right, the H, V,
and C radio buttons are placed, similar to the other 3-axis spaces. Just click
one of the radio buttons to begin using the HVC space to select colors.
HVC (Hue, Value, and Chroma) is a far more intuitive,
perceptually-oriented space than the others available in Photoshop. Spaces like
RGB are just not suited for creative use. The human mind is not accustomed to
considering color in quantities of red, green and blue light. There are many
visual distortions in RGB as well. HSB (just a reorganization or RGB) is a bit
better for navigating through colors, but suffers from the same visual
distortions. CMYK, Lab, both have their uses, but accommodating the creative
process is not one of them. HVC provides fully distortion-free clarity to color
selection, and this clarity is now available inside your copy of Photoshop.
You'll notice by clicking the "H" (Hue) radio button, we view
the HVC space by hue slices, and navigate the hue axis with the vertical slider.
The logic is exactly the same in the basic Photoshop color picker.
By clicking the "V" (Value) radio, we view HVC by value slices.
Value is a color lightness property. With this, we view all colors of a certain
lightness at once.
And the "C" (Chroma) radio button is selected. We view all
colors of a certain intensity at once.
Creating Palettes
Aside from navigating through the HVC space and using it to pick
colors, there is another important feature of HVC Color Composer. It gives you
the ability to generate dynamic palettes based on color contrast relationships.
The basic idea is:
1. You pick one or two colors.
2. You set parameters for a palette search, i.e. choose a contrast number.
3. Click "Create Palette".
The resulting palette contains only colors that have that
relationship from your one ore two colors. In other words, if you pick a
contrast, all the colors will have that contrast value when placed next to your
original color.
The palettes that are generated are very unique, vibrant, interesting arrays of
color that you would not be able to find using any other methods, not even by
flipping through professional design swatch or palette books. Yet, the palettes
have actual significance to your own work. You set the parameters, you chose the
starting colors, and now you know the exact relationship between your colors of
importance and all the palette colors. There is rhyme and reason to the
palette's existence. It fits into a game plan, a greater vision of color
selection for your personal work. That's something a static, prefab palette
could never accomplish.
View the next topic:
2. Using the color spaces
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