Workshop

Q&A

Q1:	What are those funny letters and numbers at the bottom of the Color Picker?
A1:	Those describe Web colors. The alphanumerics define the selected color in HTML.
Q2:	Is there ever a time when I would want to work in Lab Color?
A2:	Well, I've been using Photoshop since version 2, and I haven't yet found a need for Lab Color. Without knowing who you are and how you use Photoshop, I can't say you'll never need it, but it's unlikely .
Q3:	What are Web-safe colors, and why are there fewer than 256 of them?
A3:	Macintoshes and PCs both can use a limited palette of 256 colors. However, the two palettes aren't quite the same. Only 216 of the 256 colors are identical. These are the Web-safe colors, meaning that no matter what kind of computer you use to surf the Web, you'll see the page as its author intended.
Q4:	If I want to have my pictures printed on a printing press, and put them on the Web, should I be working in CMYK or RGB ?
A4:	I'd do my work in RGB mode, and then save a copy in CMYK and check the gamut before printing it. Your video monitor can't show you true CMYK colors, no matter how many times you calibrate it. It doesn't display color that way.

Quiz

1:	RGB, used by your monitor, stands for Raster (white), Gray, Black Red, Green, Blue Initials of Apple's next CEO, Roy G. Biv
2:	How many colors can a Web page display precisely? Millions 256 216
3:	Which color mode should you use for printed pages? CMYK HSB PANTONE

Quiz Answers

A1:	b.
A2:	c., but only because that's all Macintoshes and PCs can agree on.
A3:	a., if they are intended for four-color process printing. Home/office inkjet printers handle RGB conversions very well.

Exercise

Using the Photoshop Color Picker, select a nice bright red. See how it's represented in the different color models. Click at the upper-right corner of the color square. Saturation and Brightness should be 100%, regardless of which color you have selected. Red will read in the Hue field. Enter 60 in the Hue field. The color square will change to yellow. Knowing that red is 0 and yellow is 60, can you predict what number pure blue will be? Look at some other colors and see how they affect the settings. Try to understand the relationship of the colors on a theoretical color wheel to the colors you see in the spectrum.