Tutorials

Color Selection in Graphic Design

Tutorial 1 with Matisse Template – Exercise 1

In this tutorial, you will see how using the HVC Color Composer makes it easy and fun to choose colors and bring a work of art to rapid completion.

We will be using a Matisse template with a simple, uniform background (white in this case). We will use the HVC Color Composer to select colors and fill in the forms to achieve the result below.

Before -- After

Step 1

Open the Matisse template. You may download the template here. Select the layer “Shapes” to get ready to fill in the forms with the Paint Bucket tool.

Step 2

Now we want to create a palette so we can start picking colors. The nature of the palettes is simple. They are designed to contain colors that will work well together with a single color you choose. In this case, we are picking colors for shapes which all float on top of a white field. So we will want to create a palette that is designed to work well with white. The HVC Color Composer makes this very easy. First, select white (either with the Eye Dropper tool, or within the color picker itself). Open the HVC Color Composer. Select “Auto-Range”. (This is the simplest palette creation mode, recommended for beginners.) Click “Create Palette”. Now click “Save Palette”. This will enable you to work with the palette more conveniently in Photoshop’s Swatches window. (This feature is only available in the Professional version of the plug-in. If you are working with the Standard version, you will have to select from the palette within the color picker each time.) After you have saved the palette, click “OK”. Make sure Window->Swatches is checked in Photoshop. Now open the palette you just saved. In the upper right of the Swatches window, open the menu and click “Replace Swatches”. Open your saved palette. Now we have a palette full of colors that will all work well together with white. We will be able to fill the whole composition using only this palette. But we will do it systematically to illuminate the principles underlying this color selection method. The palette colors (when using Auto-Range mode) are organized by contrast groups. Weak, Medium, Strong, and Very Strong. That is, the colors in the first group have a weak contrast against white, while the colors in the second group have a medium contrast against white, and so on. Every color in a group has the same precise contrast against your original color (white) as all the other colors in that group. This sense of order built into the palette is one reason why the system is so powerful. Now we will use this palette to fill in the composition. For this exercise, we will start with colors in the first group, and work our way down.

Step 3

We will start by choosing colors which have a weak contrast against the white. These will appear as the most muted colors in the composition. (Note: in palettes made for white, the difference between the Weak and Medium groups can be subtle. To double-check you are in the right group, you can always open the color picker again and click the palette colors. The Weak colors will have a contrast of “5” from white, shown just above the palette, while Medium colors will have a contrast of “10”. Later tutorials will illustrate what these numbers mean in greater depth.) Feel free to choose any colors, even at random. The beauty of the system is that the palettes do not allow you to make a “wrong” choice. Here we have chosen the following colors, and then applied them to the template.

Step 4

We will move on to the Medium color group, continuing to fill in forms. We have added these colors.

Step 5

Now we will select colors from the Strong contrast group. The composition begins to carry more weight.

Step 6

And now the Very Strong group. This is where all the most vivid color relationships are found in this palette. We leave a few forms uncolored. We will fill those with black in the final step.

Step 7

Finally, we will fill the remaining shapes with black. As a simple rule of thumb in the early going, we will say that black will always work with white, just like any color in the palette. Black against white is the strongest contrast of all. We have very rapidly created a color composition with a balanced spread of contrasts. The colors work with each other and the background color harmoniously, through their coordinated contrast relationships. In later tutorials, you will begin to understand theory behind why this system works so well. You will learn more advanced methods for gaining complete control over every color composition you execute. For now, we will use the same template to continue to examine this basic process. With a little practice, the “Pick a color, create a palette” method of building color compositions will become second nature to you.

Next - Exercise 2