Color Palette Photography

 

Grading Criteria:

  • All five photographs need to be your own. They cannot be photos someone else has taken.
  • Five projects worth 10 points each (50 points total)
  • At least one project has to have a color palette with similar color tones
  • At least one projects needs to have a color palette with more of a variety of colors (color variation)
  • The rectangles/squares within the color palette need to be even in height (one rectangle/square should not be taller or longer than the rectangle/square next to it)

Setting up the document

  • Open Photoshop
  • Go to File—>Open
  • Select one of your photographs
  • On the layers panel, the background layer will have the lock icon on it. We are going to remove it by double clicking on it
  • Press ‘OK’
  • The reason why we needed to unlock the background layer is because we are going to increase the canvas size. When we increase it, the background will appear transparent. If we did not unlock the background layer and it would have appeared solid white or solid black
  • Select the Crop Tool (c)
  • Add a few inches to one of the sides. This is where your color palette will appear. It is up to you which side you want to add the palette to.

Adding the color palette

  • Add an empty layer (command shift n)
  • Rename the layer to ‘color palette’
  • Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (m)
  • Make a square or rectangle (I wanted a square so I held down the shift key as I made the square to keep it proportional)
  • Next, we are going to sample a color from your photography. Select the Eyedropper Tool (i) from the toolbar
  • Click on color you want to sample
  • Select the Paint Bucket Tool (g)
  • Click inside the square/rectangle you just created to fill in the color
  • Make a layer copy by pressing ‘command j’
  • Use your Move Tool (v) to move the shape. I held my shift key as I moved the shape so it stayed leveled
  • Use the Eyedropper Tool (i) to sample another color
  • Select the Paint Bucket Tool (g) to fill in the shape with the new color
  • Make a layer copy (command j)
  • Move the shape using the Move Tool (v)
  • Use the Eyedropper Tool (i) to sample another color
  • Use the Paint Bucket Tool (g) to fill in the color
  • Repeat the steps until you have five shapes with five different colors
  • I ran out of room for the shapes so I resized them
  • Next, we want to change the size so all the shapes fill up the frame
  • Click on the top layer on the layers panel
  • Hold your shift key to select multiple layers. You will click on each layer you want selected (you should not click and drag)
  • Press ‘command t’ to transform all the shapes at the same time
  • You can hold your shift key to keep them in proportion as you adjust the size
  • Press return on the keyboard when you are satisfied with the size
  • Once the sizes are adjusted and the shapes are of equal distance and shape, you can flatten the layers by going to Layer—>Flatten Image
  • Go to File—>Save As and change the format to .jpeg