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Color Science

The Color Guide

The Science of Color

Color is a science, but it’s not difficult to understand. The great thing about the sciences is that, like mathematics, it involves a set of absolute rules and principles that always work in a fixed way that never changes. Once you understand those rules, working with color becomes an intuitive process that doesn’t require much thought, because you already know what to expect as you work with them. In the same way that 2+2 = 4 no matter where you go in the universe, color science is no different. The purpose of this guide is to spell out those rules. Once you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, using Adobe’s color tools will become second nature.

Table of Contents

What You Will Learn:

The purpose of this guide is to help users understand how color works, so that when you approach any color tool, you will know before you ever touch anything what you should expect to see. The objective is to remove the guesswork from the color tools that so many Adobe users employ to get the desired results. This guide will teach you the fundamentals of color so you know why you’re moving sliders and changing settings. The concepts found here are applicable to any application you use. When you have completed this guide, you will be ready to use Adobe’s color tools with a firm understanding of the science that makes them work. 

Related Courses

  • The Color Pickers
  • Color Mixing
  • Working With Swatches
  • The Sliders
  • Color Spaces
  • Blending Modes
  • The Gradient Tools

The Photoshop Library