Using Colors Effectively


Enough color theory. Here are some ideas to help you use colors more effectively when creating art:

Do not use your colors at full strength all over your art. ‚   ‚  Reserve your colors of strongest intensity for your centers of interest. Color used all over at full strength will either bore or confuse your audience.

Decide who the audience for the picture is and choose the colors accordingly . ‚   ‚  Be aware of gender, age, and education-level preferences.

Different color schemes call for different handling. ‚   ‚  If you use a color scheme that is predominantly one color, or a family of colors, make sure that you also use a complementary color somewhere in your composition. (Near the center of interest is good.)

If you have large fields of one flat color, break it up using 'noise.' ‚   ‚  Large expanses of flat colors are visually boring.

Establish your color scheme quickly and stick to it. ‚   ‚  An established color scheme will help you keep from nitpicking individual elements and fracturing the color harmony.

Make sure that the colors look bright. ‚   ‚  To make a color look brighter, place its complement next to it.

Use a color's tendency to advance or retreat to your benefit. Warm color advances; cool color recedes.

Avoid colors that are hard to read. ‚   ‚  Pure blue should be avoided for text, thin lines, and small shapes . Also avoid adjacent colors that differ only in the amount of blue. Avoid red and green at the edge of large images.

A color's four main characteristics are subject to change. ‚   ‚  Colors change in appearance as the ambient light level changes.

When you are changing color from one color to another it is difficult to focus on edges created by color changes alone.




Digital Character Design and Painting
Digital Character Design and Painting: The Photoshop CS Edition (Graphics Series) (Charles River Media Graphics)
ISBN: 1584503408
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 112

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