TIP & SUGGESTION: Color Splash Color splash is a technique as was well as an app. It comes from print graphic design and illustration, where the idea was to pull attention to an element in an image by having it in color while the rest if the image is grayscale (black & white). Other terms for this technique are color highlight and spot color. Color splash can be done by masking color everywhere you dont want it, or by adding or returning color to an otherwise grayscale image. You can take your color image, convert it to grayscale, then mask color back in where you want it. You can also colorize a grayscale image with spot color. In print, spot color is an added color, like coloring an apple red in a black & white photo. If you look at examples of advertising and graphic design, youll see that spot color can be used very effectively to tell a story, by bringing attention to an element of the photo to underline its importance to the image, and the story being told. Spot color is a single color added to B&W, as an overlay or a Duotone. In the days of print graphic design, this served two purposes: to make part of an image really catch the attention, and not coincidently to save printing costs. Duotone images are printed in two colors, instead of the usual four color print that is used in most color printing. That meant fewer passes through the printing press. The way most iOS apps do color splash or spot color is with masking: you paint the area of the photo you want to highlight with a mask, which serves either to mask color back in to a grayscale image, or to mask color out of everything else. Most iOS apps use masking for their effects along these lines. In addition to Color Splash app, there are several others of various quality, including the five Ive listed in the photo attached to this post. You can also use any photo editor or art-making iOS app that includes layers and/or masking tools. For example: PS Touch, Laminator Pro, Blender, Layover, even iColorama, and others. In an app that has layers and masks, one way to do this effect is to duplicate the image on a new layer, desaturate the overlaid image to make it grayscale only, then use a layer mask to make the original colored photo show through, from the layer below, in the areas you want color to show. You can also make a color splash in an app like ArtRage or ProCreate, where you can put your grayscale image on one layer, then paint in your spot color on a layer above that. Use a translucent layer so that the original image detail shines through. Tangent also has some presets that are editable color splash effects, as does PixlrExpress+, both of which can be used very creatively. TIP: Try learning to do a color splash in a method thats new to your workflow. Try one of the apps dedicated to this, like Color Splash or Color Strokes. Or if thats what you are used to, try doing it using layers and masks in an editor like Laminar Pro or PS Touch. SUGGESTION: Try looking for images to do this effect with that arent obvious or familiar. I mean, its easy to make the apple on the teachers desk red; that approaches cliché. Try the technique on an image that might not seem obvious. That is, not obvious in terms of subject matter or composition or interest focus. Remember that wherever you apply spot color or color splash is really going to be emphasized. The eye will go right to it. So try using color in a way that might not be expected, obvious, or easy. Also, remember that many if the best image compositions are not symmetrical, and out the most important element in the image NOT in the center, but closer to the edge of the frame. Remember the Rule of Thirds.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 23:00:16 +0000
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