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Benjamin26932935afa3
Participant
November 2, 2022
Question

Question: Im confused in regards to the color wheel in photoshop.

  • November 2, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 270 views

When I increase the saturation in the color wheel either by using the saturation slider or by moving the color horizontally it should be keeping the brightness/value of the color the same right? But when viewing the colors in black and white I see that the value of the color has changed even if i haven't moved the color up or down/increased the brightness.

Is this how it's always been? I've just recently started using control y to view my paintings in black and white in photoshop. (The value also changes when changing the hue).

I always thought that saturation didn't affect the value of a color.

 

Is this how the color wheel has always worked? Or did I accidentally change a setting or something? 

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    2 replies

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 3, 2022

    You can do as Myra suggests. If you want the explanation, this is it:

     

    It's normal, although a bit counter-intuitive. It has to do with how RGB data are desaturated - it simply averages the numbers in the three color channels.

     

    The fact that yellow is inherently bright and purple inherently dark is not part of the equation.

     

    If you want to avoid this, you can also convert to Lab, desaturate, and convert back to RGB. Lab works in a different way that takes inherent color brightness into consideration:

      Myra Ferguson
      Community Expert
      Myra FergusonCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 3, 2022

      If you'd like to change how your paintings look in black and white, then try using a Black & White adjustment layer (click on the middle icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Black & White). Then you can use the sliders to adjust the brightness of a color.

        B
        Benjamin26932935afa3Author
        Participant
        November 10, 2022
        @Myra Ferguson wrote:

        If you'd like to change how your paintings look in black and white, then try using a Black & White adjustment layer (click on the middle icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Black & White). Then you can use the sliders to adjust the brightness of a color.

         

        im 

        @Myra Ferguson wrote:

        If you'd like to change how your paintings look in black and white, then try using a Black & White adjustment layer (click on the middle icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and select Black & White). Then you can use the sliders to adjust the brightness of a color.

         

        Ok thanks, I'll try this

         

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