How Color Works

Of course, that could be the title of an entire book or series. I’ll attempt to restrict myself to what you need to work in Photoshop. Please keep one thing in mind throughout this discussion: a color is what it looks like and not a bunch of numbers! That is, a color “happens” in your brain via the eyes. The trick is supplying your eyes and brain with the stimuli they need to recognize the color you want them to.

Color Modes

There are different ways in which we describe a color in Photoshop, and so Photoshop can operate in several color modes: RGB, CMYK, Lab, Grayscale, and a couple derivatives of these. Each mode attempts to work with color in the way different media or devices do. Grayscale, for example, is useful for images ...

Get Adobe Photoshop now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.