[thelist] Photoshop: Reproducing this effect?

rytames at telusplanet.net rytames at telusplanet.net
Sun Aug 3 02:47:59 CDT 2003


I probally owe a tip, so here my first one..

<tip name="Ryan Tames" type="Photoshop">

The art of using Greyscale. Greyscale can be used for more
then 256 shades of Grey, as I will show...

Greyscale in general describes 256 levels of Opacity, and/or
Brightness depending on what it Is used for. For instance,
on a custom brush, first convert your image to Greyscale,
your image can be any image. The greys describe the amount
of paint that will flow from the brush tip, Black being the most paint,
leading to white, where white is no paint (can also represent purity).

Greyscale is also used for masks and channels. On channels,
greyscale describes the 'purity' of one colour, depending on the
colour mode. For instance RGB mode there will be 256 levels leading
to the purest, of Red Green and Blue, the three primary additive colours.
Mixture of the RGB channels combine to create 256^3 odd colours, 
without the addition of ICC profiles.

In general Greyscale also describes contrast. Related to channels,
generally the Blue channel has the highest amounts of contrasts, depending
on the photo/image in question. And can be used to alter the images 
contrasts. Which is the description of each the primary colours lightness,
or purity.

In my experiences, in RGB mode the red channel provides the lowest
contrast, and the Green channel providing a medium contrast. With
each channel(s) being able to converted to a mask.

Masks can use 256 levels of grey to describe opacity. Some what
like a gradient. Masks can be used to hide or show certains areas,
they can also be used to add textures to your images. Simply,
a texture can be similair to a bump map, where light greys descibe
the height, and dark greys describe the lower points. Middle greys,
describe the middle 'ground'.

Similar can be used for Brushes, Textures, Masks and Channel
manipulations, depending on the effect your are going for, along
with Photoshops built in colour manipulations such as Levels, Channel
Mixer, and more.

The above tools are only a small part of what make Photoshop the best
tool for photo manipulation.

</tip>


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