*** From the Archives ***

This article is from May 2, 2003, and is no longer current.

Design How-To: Using the Color Wheel to Find the Right Match

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This story is taken from “Before & After” Magazine.


You pay attention to colors in your photographs. You may even use a color management system to ensure that the colors you see on screen are the same as the ones that print. Yet do you pay enough attention to the colors that surround the image? The colors you use in your design can lessen the impact or change the meaning of a photo.

It all goes back to the color wheels we used as kids to learn about color. Colors can coordinate, complement, or clash to different effect. Start by selecting tones from your image itself then experiment with the color wheel for endless options.

This article was available on CreativePro.com for a limited time only. However, you can still read the article by buying Issue 31 from the Before & After site. Since we’re big fans of the magazine, we recommend you subscribe for a full 32 articles (that’s four print issues for $42 or 32 downloadable PDFs for $24).

 

  • anonymous says:

    Really gave me some insight for pulling contrasting colors out of a photo!

  • anonymous says:

    This example should be of interest to anyone making color publishing decisions.

  • anonymous says:

    This is a great article, but how do you create those color wheels?! I’m a Photoshop user and this tool seems to be absent. Without the ability to create these color wheels it is difficult to implement the ideas in this article.

  • tsymic says:

    PDF can’t be opened.

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