Rebirth of top photographers

Chapter 186: Hue, brightness, and saturation (dry information! Colorful)
"First of all, we still have to remember that the complementary colors of red, green and blue are cyan, magenta and yellow. There is no need to remember the specific colors, just these six words. When you want to find the complementary colors, just think in your mind and you will know the complementary colors of red It’s cyan, the complementary color of green is magenta, and the complementary color of blue is yellow.”

"Then let's open PS now."

Chen Pingsheng opened the PS software directly on the computer under the podium, and then inserted a photo of the sea.

The picture shows the blue sea and white embankments and telephone poles. The overall composition is very simple and there are relatively few colors, but it looks very comfortable.

"I took this photo casually." Chen Pingsheng said while operating the mouse: "You can see this sea. In fact, the saturation is not very high and the color is not very blue."

“I think this is something that everyone often encounters, that is, the color will be different between the naked eye and the camera.

"Generally, how do you deal with this situation? Adjust the saturation? But what if I don't want the white part underneath to be adjusted as well?"

Chen Pingsheng clicked on the hue/saturation option of PS: "You may think, just adjust the blue color. I'll adjust the saturation of the blue color, and that's it."

After saying that, he adjusted it directly, and sure enough, the sea became bluer.

"But this method is actually not easy to use, because adjusting the saturation of a certain hue alone can easily cause color gradation faults. You see." He enlarged the picture, and the students immediately discovered that there is a gap between the ocean and the dam. A break in color.

"So I recommend you to use a more useful method. What is it? Just remove the complementary color of blue, yellow." As he said that, he clicked on the optional color interface of PS and changed the color to blue.

"I will give you a simple demonstration. You can see that when I pull the yellow to the left, that is, after removing the yellow from the blue, the ocean becomes bluer. Isn't it like this?" Chen Pingsheng kept showing it to everyone. Before and after comparison.

The classmates were all amazed.

"Really!"

"So easy to use!"

"I've been stupidly adjusting the saturation before, but I didn't expect this method!"

Chen Pingsheng waited for a while and said: "This is the application of complementary colors in color mixing, and it is also the reason why we understand these basic knowledge, which allows us to truly have the idea of ​​​​color mixing. For any color change, we will understand what it involves. Exactly what it is and changing it, that’s the most important thing in color grading.”

"Wow!" The students immediately clapped and expressed their admiration.

When the applause faded, Chen Pingsheng continued: "Of course, the effect of just removing yellow is not obvious enough. We can add cyan and magenta, which is equivalent to adding blue."

Switching the PS to the background, Chen Pingsheng started the next phase of his lecture.

"After talking about the three primary colors, let's talk about the three elements of color! Hue, saturation and brightness." He turned to the next page of the ppt.

"First of all, what is hue? It's very simple. What color it is is what hue. Saturation is also easy to understand, which is the degree of bright color. The higher the saturation, the less gray there is and the purer the color. The lower the saturation. , the more gray, the closer the color is to pure gray.

"Lightness refers to the degree of lightness and darkness of a color. There is a hierarchy of lightness and darkness. There are 0 levels in total from 255-256. That is to say, from the whitest to the gray to the darkest, there are a total of 256 levels.

"How to say it in English, HSL, HSB, HSV, different software may have different meanings of brightness, but they all mean brightness. So when you encounter these words, don't panic, they are just different English versions of brightness. "

Chen Pingsheng took a sip of water: "As for the most intuitive way to see the three elements of color, let's look at PS."

He clicked on the color picker and showed what happens when you adjust the different options.

"Look at HSB, they are separated here. We first pull H, which is the color box corresponding to the color. We can see that no matter how we drag, only H is changing, so it is very clear that it is the color."

"And when we drag the pointer in the largest color box, we drag it left and right and horizontally, and we can see that the S is moving, which is the saturation. And the color can also be seen gradually getting lighter from dark. Back and forth.”

"When we pull it up and down, we can see that the higher it is, the brighter the color is, and the lower it is, the darker the color is. This is the brightness."

"So in order to study how neatly these three elements are related, we need to make a banner now."

Chen Pingsheng drew a red banner directly in PS, with his name written on it in bright yellow.

"Look at this banner. Does it have high saturation and lightness? Let's open the color picker and take a look." Chen Pingsheng clicked, and then all the students found that the red and yellow colors were at the highest both in lightness and saturation. .

This makes the whole picture very eye-catching and even a little irritating to the eyes, just like those banners often hung outside.

"The combination of these two colors is very eye-catching. You should also be able to recall that many brands, such as Wuliangye, use red and yellow as roadside signs. But it also has a consequence: does it really look good like this?" Chen Ping Sheng asked.

"It doesn't look good!" the students in the audience immediately replied.

"Yes, it doesn't look good. So is there any way to make it eye-catching and beautiful at the same time?" Chen Pingsheng said: "How can we make it more beautiful without adjusting the hue?"

"That is to only adjust the saturation and lightness. First, lower the lightness of the bright red. Keep the saturation unchanged, that is, make it darker." Chen Pingsheng completed the adjustment skillfully, and the bright red has turned into a dark red.

"Then we lower the saturation of the bright yellow, keeping the brightness unchanged."

After the operation was completed, the students found that the font was closer to white, and it was much more comfortable to watch with the naked eye. However, in terms of eye-catching, the original banner was more eye-catching.

Chen Pingsheng also mentioned this: "After the adjustment, it does look much more comfortable, but it doesn't seem to be as eye-catching as before, right? Let's do an experiment."

He placed the two banners together, one above and one below, so that people can have a clear contrast.

"What would happen if we removed the hue from these two banners?" He raised his head and looked at his classmates.

Most people were meditating, while a few were shaking their heads, as if they had no specific concepts in their minds. "You'll know after you try it." He adjusted the red and yellow hues into black and white, and suddenly the whole picture took on a new look.

Everyone can see that the eye-catching red and yellow contrast at the top suddenly turned into a very gray-looking picture.

The adjusted banner below is very conspicuous and the font is extremely bright, stealing all the attention.

"Wow!" Everyone was surprised. They didn't expect that the banner with the most eye-catching color would be so dim after being adjusted to black and white. It felt like a kind of visual magic.

"Did you see it? In fact, our eyes have been deceived by color for too long, which has affected our judgment of saturation and brightness."

Chen Pingsheng switched back to the PPT, which showed a black and white photo.

"So color is very interesting, and it is something we photographers must understand. And through this comparison, we can also find that shooting black and white is actually paving the way for color, because the shooting of black and white photos itself requires our artificial Get rid of the hue and keep only the value and saturation.”

Standing on the podium, Chen Pingsheng concluded: "Through black and white, we can also hone our perception of the three elements. Later, when we use color, we will be more comfortable."

After saying this, Chen Pingsheng's class came to an end.

"Do any students want to ask questions?" Director Yu stood up at the right time and controlled the situation for Chen Pingsheng.

The students in the audience were also very enthusiastic, raising their hands one by one to ask questions.

Some are asking questions about this class, and others are asking about the creativity of the work "The Crow".

But Professor Fang didn't listen to these. He just kept thinking about the content of Chen Pingsheng's lecture just now.

Then he sighed, feeling as if he was getting old.

Regarding how to teach students these basic knowledge, every teacher has his own method, either following the textbook or looking for some cases.

But no one has really tried Chen Pingsheng's teaching method that starts from the source and is supplemented by practice.

Because everyone actually has a vague understanding of these basic knowledge. It is precisely because they are so basic that many people do not pay attention to them.

But it is often these foundations that determine a person's upper limit.

A truly thoughtful photographer will use these foundations in his own way to form his own creative ideas.

Nowadays, students and even teachers basically imitate others and learn according to other people's ideas in the later stage. Without talking about how to surpass, it is difficult to clarify why others do what they do.

So Professor Fang knew that Chen Pingsheng had really gone his own way.

And not just a moment of luck.

"Buzz!"

The bell rang. Although the students here were reluctant, they had no choice but to follow the teachers out of the classroom.

Each one of them waved hello to Chen Pingsheng as they left.

"Goodbye, senior!"

"meet on Monday!"

"Ah! I haven't signed up yet! I'm going now!"

Chen Pingsheng looked at the youthful students in front of him and suddenly thought of his own college days.

Suddenly an old hand was handed over.

Chen Pingsheng glanced down, then looked up and found that it was Professor Fang.

It was him who said that he had no talent for photography, which created a nightmare for a while.

Chen Pingsheng was stunned for a moment, and the teachers around him stared at the two of them nervously.

They all knew the rumors and were afraid that Chen Pingsheng would be dissatisfied with the school and refuse to reconcile with Professor Fang.

But Chen Pingsheng then reached out his hand and shook it.

"Your photography talent is actually very good." Professor Fang whispered, and then left the classroom.

Chen Pingsheng stayed there and pondered for a moment, then raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

"I think so."

　The content of these two chapters draws on the courses of Teacher Wu Xiaolong. Teacher Wu’s courses are very exciting. Friends who are interested can go to Station B to search for this teacher.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)