Join Deke McClelland for an in-depth discussion in this video Luminance and its relationship to color, part of Photoshop CC 2015 One-on-One: Fundamentals.
- In Photoshop and other graphics programs, brightness goes by many names including shade, tone, and my favorite, luminants. In your everyday average RGB image which is far and away the most common kind of image you'll encounter, luminants is measured in steps known as levels. A level of zero is black and a level of 255 is white. The other levels, 1 through 254, represent the progressively brighter shades of grey in between. So where does color come in? Again, assuming an RGB image, you have three luminants-only versions of an image, called channels.
The three channels are respectively colorized red, green, and blue (hence RGB) and then blended together to produce the full color composite. In other words, color is the function of luminants. Meanwhile, luminants in colors sometimes react with each other in surprising ways. Look at a strip of grey values and you see a steady progression of neutral levels, just as you would expect. Throw a cool color like blue into the mix and the blues go from light to dark as expected. But add a warm color like red and we go from cool pinks at the top to a surprisingly intense scarlet at the bottom.
As we progress into the oranges, notice how the most vivid colors move up the list. We eventually arrive at yellow which darkens into an unappetizing shade of green. In other words, changing the brightness of a photo can be tricky. The purpose of this chapter is to show you how to adjust luminants in ways that will always make your images look better and never worse. In the end, I think you'll be amazed at the degree to which you can rescue even the most washed out or murky photograph.
Author
Updated
7/27/2016Released
8/14/2015Learn to open images from multiple sources, crop and straighten images, navigate panels and menus, and work with layers—the feature that allows you to mask parts of an image, combine effects, and composite artwork. Deke shows you how to perform important editing tasks, adjusting brightness and contrast, correcting color, and retouching and healing portraits. He also reviews formatting text, printing, and preparing web graphics in Photoshop.
Check back every time Photoshop updates for new movies, new feature reviews, and new ways to work.
- Opening images
- Zooming in and out
- Understanding image size and resolution
- Upsampling and downsampling
- Cropping nondestructively
- Straightening a crooked image
- Creating new layers
- Working with clipping masks, opacity, and blend modes
- Scaling and rotating layers
- Saving your work
- Adjusting brightness and contrast
- Applying dynamic adjustment layers
- Correcting color casts
- Recoloring artwork
- Working with Quick Mask mode
- Retouching portraits
- Nondestructive dodging and burning
- Developing raw images in Camera Raw
- Creating and formatting text
- Printing images
- Saving images for the web
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
Q: This course was updated on 07/28/2016. What changed?
A: Deke added two new videos, "Content-Aware Crop" and "Type size and script fonts," and updated seven more, to reflect the latest changes in Photoshop CC.
Related Courses
-
Deke's Techniques
with Deke McClelland140h 48m Intermediate -
Photoshop Masking and Compositing: Fundamentals
with Deke McClelland11h 35m Intermediate -
Photoshop CC 2013 One-on-One: Intermediate
with Deke McClelland10h 37m Intermediate
-
Introduction
-
Welcome to One-on-One2m 57s
-
-
1. Opening an Image
-
2. Getting Around
-
Zooming in and out5m 48s
-
Zooming continuously5m 37s
-
Entering a custom zoom value4m 24s
-
Scrolling (aka panning)2m 45s
-
Cycling between screen modes4m 20s
-
Using the Navigator panel5m 23s
-
Panels and workspaces7m 34s
-
Updating a workspace2m 49s
-
3. Image Size and Resolution
-
Digital imaging fundamentals1m 18s
-
Image size and resolution5m 21s
-
Common resolution standards6m 57s
-
Downsampling for print4m 28s
-
-
4. Crop and Straighten
-
Honing in on your image1m 30s
-
Using the Crop tool3m 18s
-
Cropping nondestructively5m 11s
-
The new Content-Aware Crop2m 22s
-
-
5. Introducing Layers
-
The layered composition1m 25s
-
Introducing the Layers panel5m 44s
-
Employing a clipping mask3m 40s
-
-
6. Saving Your Progress
-
7. Brightness and Contrast
-
How luminance works5m 18s
-
The three Auto commands4m 45s
-
Introducing the Histogram4m 40s
-
Putting the Histogram to use5m 48s
-
8. Balancing Colors
-
9. Making Selections
-
10. The Quick Mask Mode
-
Painting selections1m 41s
-
Reversing a mask with Invert4m 26s
-
-
11. Retouch and Heal
-
Your best face forward1m 13s
-
-
12. Introducing Camera Raw
-
Nondestructive Camera Raw4m 55s
-
13. Creating and Formatting Text
-
Finding the perfect font7m 10s
-
Type size and script fonts5m 29s
-
Creating text along a circle5m 15s
-
Double-stroking a circle3m 37s
-
14. Printing Your Images
-
Print from RGB, not CMYK3m 10s
-
Print, size, and position6m 30s
-
-
15. Creating Web Graphics
-
Stroking translucent text7m 25s
-
Conclusion
-
Until next time1m 18s
-
- Mark as unwatched
- Mark all as unwatched
Are you sure you want to mark all the videos in this course as unwatched?
This will not affect your course history, your reports, or your certificates of completion for this course.
CancelTake notes with your new membership!
Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.
1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.
Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.
Share this video
Embed this video
Video: Luminance and its relationship to color