painting in LAB mode 1

I have been trying to paint using LAB mode in photoshop, and exploring some possibilities, I did came across a very neat way to paint hue/color without modifying its lightness value. and it all has to to with LAB. Thank fully this actually doesn’t involve converting to LAB!

when painting you can have alt key down to sample colour, then open colour picker, select the L: option this actually restricts the L in LAB, so the light value is restricted and you have the choice of varying the AB in the colour picker by just dragging around.

this is very useful in painting, lets imagine you are painting skin tones and you what a cooler or hotter version of the current colour, but without actually changing the value. it makes sense to change this way, so you don’t kill the lighting so easily. Also looking at the colour picker when L is resitricted it lends its self very well in term of natural color separation, you have the cool cyan for skin highlights and hot reds and magentas for shadow areas. Again you don’t have to be in LAB to use this, but ‘m actually painting in lab just because the colour mixing is much natural.

~ by yinako on March 6, 2007.