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Home | Products | Photoshop | Plug-ins
Color Theory
Reviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, June 10th 2006
Introduction
Color Theory is a nifty software program that takes out
the mystery from creating great color combinations and palettes.
Unlike the normal computer color wheel that uses an RGB (Red, Green,
and Blue) color wheel, Color Theory brings the more human oriented
RYB (Red, Yellow, and Blue) color wheel to the computing environment.
This ensures that your choices are intuitive--after all, we are
all used to imagine that yellow and red mix together to form
orange. For the uninitiated, the RGB color spectrum mixes the colors
of lights--the RYB spectrum mixes normal pigment colors that we
humans are used to!
Other than being a standalone application, Color Theory includes
a mirrored plugin suite for After Effects, Photoshop, and
Final Cut Pro which work the same way. This not only helps to find
the best color combinations for the artwork or design, it also
aids in experimentation to find newer possibilities.
And since you can experiment so intuitively, you'll want to do
it more often.
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About Color Theory
Color Theory is from Digital Anarchy,a plug-in and design software
company based out of San Francisco, United States. You can learn
more about Color Theory and their other products
at their site...
You can also download a trial version of Color
Theory from their site..Also make sure that you check out the movie tutorials for Color
Theory on the site.
Color Theory is available in both Windows and
Mac versions. In addition, the product
itself is available in Standard and Pro versions. The Pro version
has extra niceties like plug-in support for several applications,
image import, and video export. I reviewed the Pro Windows version.
My contact at Digital Anarchy for this review was Debbie Rich
-- thank you, Debby.
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Installation
Installation is a quick affair that creates a program menu. Other
than the program itself, the Pro version of Color Theory also installs
a set of plugin files for Photoshop, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro.
These plug-in files need to be copied to the plug-in folder of
the application that you want to use Color Theory with.
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How To Use
Here's how you can create color palettes in Color Theory. I'm
using the Photoshop plug-in version, but the standalone version
works in almost the same way.
- Open a new or existing Photoshop image. If you are choosing
to create a new image, let the background be transparent.
- In Photoshop, choose Filter | Digital Anarchy | Color Theory
(see Figure 1)
Figure 1
- This will open the Color Theory interface ( See Figure
02 ). The interface has a large preview area called the
canvas and shows a red monochromatic combination. Any changes
you make using the controls updates the canvas dynamically.
Figure 2
- Anytime you want to get back to this default screen, just right-click
the canvas and choose the Reset option (see Figure
3). The same right-click menu has more options like
Copy, Paste, View Full Screen, etc. The View Full Screen options
shows the preview using your entire screen--even if you have
a dual monitor. That's a great preview!
Figure 03
- The top left part of the interface allows you to select a
foreground color. Click over the red color swatch and you'll
see a menu that is shown in Figure
4
Figure 4
- Select the Pick Color option to summon the default Windows
color picker (see Figure
5)
Figure 5
- I selected a blue and this dynamically changed the canvas--to
view the combination in another pattern, change the Vertical
option in the Background Pattern dropdown box to any other alternative
(see Figure
6)
Figure 6
- By default, the Formula section is set to Monochromatic. You
can even see a small color wheel below (See Figure
7) that
shows how the colors are selected as we change the color formulas.
The Randomize Edit button alters the lightness and saturation
but leaves the hues unchanged.
Figure 7
- At the bottom of the canvas (see Figure
8 ) there
are rows of empty color swatches. These rows and swatches are
used to add more colors to a combination. Experiment with all
the formulas by choosing them from the Formulas dropdown menu.
To add more colors, just Alt click an empty swatch--naturally
all this does relate to the formula type you have chosen. Even
if you don't know color theory too well, experimenting and
viewing dynamic results will teach you much more than months
of reading color theory books.
Figure 8
- There's so much more you can do--do watch the tutorial movies
on the Digital Anarchy site and read the informative PDF manual.
Tweaking and experimenting, you'll arrive at a color combination
you like(as in Figure
9).
Figure 9
- Once you are done, click OK and your Photoshop image will
be the same as the canvas preview in the Color Theory dialog
box.
If you were using the standalone version of Color Theory, you
could choose the File | Export
Image option and save it as a Photoshop file, or any of the other
file format options.
Choosing Photoshop as an output format, you will see a Photoshop
Options dialog box (see Figure 10).
Figure 10
- As a Photoshop plug-in or a standalone application, Color Theory
allows you to save
your combinations to a Color Theory file format (*.CT) -- you
can then open these Color Theory files and make more changes
in the future.
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Specifications
Photoshop Versions: |
CS2, CS, 7, Elements, and compatible host applications.
|
Platforms: |
Windows, Mac |
Site: |
Digital Anarchy |
Price: |
$49 (Standard) and $99 (Pro) |
Trial Version: |
Available |
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