Part 6. Working with Color

Task

1. How to Work with Color Variations

2. How to Make Global Color Corrections

3. How to Correct a Range of Colors

4. How to Make Subtle Color Changes

5. How to Build Duotones for the Web

6. How to Build Duotones, Tritones, and Quadtones for Print

For some people, color corrections are very intimidating. They see the RGB or CMYK conversion curves and tables, talk to prepress guys who harp over perfect flesh-tone balance, and decide that color correction is something to be left to the "experts."

Although it's true that you can mess up the color in an image, it's also true that you can do quite a bit on your own. This is especially the case if you're designing for the Web as opposed to print: The monitor is much more representative of the way the final image will look on the Web as opposed to its appearance on paper.

The tasks in this part explain the basics of color correction and show what a huge difference color can make in an image. Although you won't be a prepress expert, you should learn to trust your eye a bit more and to have confidence in correcting the color in your own images.