rich2005
Administrator
How to Combine Colors?
Years ago, I worked at the Government Agency that didn’t allow me to use any political party color in the designs during election years. In Puerto Rico, traditionally that would be three parties. They each use one color: red, green, and blue. A little problem, right? The basic colors.
But in 2012, three non-traditional new parties registered to be part of the democratic process. Each party used one color: orange, purple, and turquoise.
Four years went by. In 2016, two of the three independent parties vanished. But two independent candidates for Governor registered. One of them used black and yellow prominently.
So, in summary, I could not use red, green, blue, orange, purple, turquoise, black or yellow in any design. It was a big challenge. Sometimes, a nightmare. Because even after pulling the “magic trick” of not using those colors, people still complained that they didn’t like the selected color palette. It was a constant back and forth.
But this pushed me to approach color in a new way. To study it and learn how in the world I could make it work. Because I still had a message to represent in the designs. And sometimes color have a lot to do with the message.
The first step was to learn how to combine colors. I couldn’t just use the “leftover” colors I had. They still need to make sense and feel cohesive.
Color can make or break a design.
No matter if you have restrictions in your color palette options or full flexibility, color combination is a process that can take hours. Not to mention of you use Adobe Illustrator “Recolor Artwork” tool. You can go into an infinite loophole.
Sometimes the same design can look so stylish and unique in a color palette. But with the wrong color selection people just pass by and ignore it.
Color combination rules.
That’s why knowing the basics of color combination is important. Usually, when we combine colors, the starting point to do it is by the complementary color.
A complementary color is the color located directly across the color wheel. A cold and a warm color. Cool colors are from purple to green. Warm colors are from red to yellow. This way guaranties the best contrast possible between two colors. Red is the complimentary color of green. Blue is the complementary color of orange, and so on.
Monochromatic means to use only one color, but in a variety of tints, tones, or shades. For example, here we would use variations from this yellow orange. But only yellow orange.
Triadic means the use of three colors evenly spaced among the color wheel. In this case we are using red, jump over three colors, and select blue, jump over three more colors, and select yellow. That leaves us three other colors to arrive again to red. When we trace an imaginary line across the selected colors, we create a triangle.
Tetradic (or square) and rectangular , means the use of four colors that consist of two sets of complementary colors. In the upper color wheel, we are using red and its complementary color, green. Then we are using blue purple and its complementary color, yellow orange. In the color wheel below, we are using purple and its complementary color, yellow. Then we are using blue with orange. When tracing an imaginary line between them, you create squares or rectangles.
Merging blue and purple tones
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Merging colors. How do it with Gimp?
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Merging colors. How do it with Gimp?
Krikor
Obsessive Gimper
- Windows (Vista and later)
#1
07-27-2023, 10:00 AM
We obtain the secondary colors by superimposing the primary colors, such that:
Red + Yellow = Orange
Blue + Red = Purple
Yellow + Blue = Green
Is there any way to produce this with The Gimp?
I laid each color in a layer and tried to get the secondary colors, I tried the layers modes and the composite mode , but without getting the expected results.
.
Samj Portable – Gimp 2.10.28 – Win-10 /64 .
rich2005
Administrator
- Linux
#2
07-27-2023, 11:05 AM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2023, 11:15 AM by rich2005.)
Typically done in layers with layer masks for CMYK printing but as a single layer example
RGB (additive colours) use the brush in lighten-only mode
CMY (subtractive colours) use the brush in darken-only mode
Edit: Looking for old script that makes good examples – one of Saul Goodes – sg-decompose.scm
It decomposes into layers either RGB or CMY – find it in the layers menu.
Attached, remember to unzip it.
Attached Files
sg-decompose.zip (Size: 1.42 KB / Downloads: 102)
rich2005
Administrator
- Linux
#3
07-27-2023, 03:43 PM
As often happens I am not answering the question. A mix of RGB and CMY primary colours.
It might not be possible to get your example
This using different layer modes but for the Yellow – grain merge I had to reinforce with a sub-layer. Also Green is not bright green it is dark.
To me it looks like a job for (possibly) inkscape.
Krikor
Obsessive Gimper
- Windows (Vista and later)
#4
07-28-2023, 03:12 AM
Your tip on how to proceed in the case of RGB (additive) and CMYK (subtractive) answered another question I had.
After reading your answer I still kept trying to find some way to get the orange , purple and green of the primary colors, only to fail again.
Orange and purple were even obtained, basically the way you demonstrated in the previous post. But the green one. that didn’t come up at all.
About the possibility of getting something with Inkscape , I also didn’t get a satisfactory result (because I’m quite a noob in using Inkscape).
I tested sg-decompose.scm , I’m sure I can do the same using Color Decompose by Pat David ➤ Image – Colors and Decompose
Thanks for the help and the plugin!
