has an orange cast, you can remove it by moving away from
Red (toward Cyan) and then away from Yellow (toward blue).
Photoshop’s other color-wheel-savvy command, Hue/Satura-
tion (which we’ll see in the next exercise), tracks colors numeri-
cally. A circle measures 360 degrees, so the Hue value places
each of the six primary colors 60 degrees from its neighbors.
Secondary colors appear at every other multiple of 30 degrees,
with tertiary colors at odd multiples of 15 degrees.
To track the difference a Hue adjustment will make, just follow
along the wheel. Positive adjustments run counterclockwise;
negative adjustments run clockwise. So if you enter a Hue
value of 60 degrees, yellow will become green, ultramarine
will become purple, indigo will become lavender, and so on.
It may take a little time to make complete sense of the wheel,
but once it sinks in, you’ll want to rip it out of the book and
paste it to your wall. Trust me, it’s that useful.The Visible-Color Spectrum Wheel
MagentaRedGreen YellowCyanBlueGrayOrangeLimeTurquoiseCobalt CrimsonViolet60°240° (–120°) 300° (–60°)120°180° 0°30°150°90°270° (–90°)330° (–30°)210° (–150°)ChartreuseAmberVermilionLakeLavenderPurpleIndigoEmeraldAquamarineUltramarineViridianSkyTo feel comfortable working with the Color Balance controls
inside the Adjustment panel (or dialog box) and later in the
Hue/Saturation versions of the same, you have to understand
the composition of a little thing called the visible-color spec-
trum wheel. Pictured below, the wheel contains a continuous
sequence of hues in the visible spectrum, the saturation of
which ranges from vivid along the perimeter to drab gray at
the center.
The colors along the outside of the circle match those that ap-
pear in a rainbow. But as the labels in the circle imply, the colors
don’t really fit the childhood mnemonic Roy G. Biv, short for
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. An abso-
lutely equal division of colors in the rainbow tosses out orange,
indigo, and violet and recruits cyan and magenta, producing
Ry G. Cbm (with the last name, I suppose, pronounced “see-
bim”). Printed in large colorful type, these six even divisions
just so happen to correspond to the three primary colors of
light—red, green, and blue—alternating with the three pri-
mary pigments of print—cyan, magenta, and yellow. (The
missing print color, black, is not a primary. Black ink fills in
shadows, as we will discuss in Lesson 12.)
In theory, cyan ink absorbs red light and reflects the remain-
ing primaries, which is why cyan appears a bluish green.
This is also why Red and Cyan are treated as opposites
in the Color Balance dialog box or Adjustments panel.
Similarly, magenta ink absorbs its opposite, green;
yellow ink absorbs blue.
Of course, Ry G. Cbm is just a small part of the
story. The color spectrum is continuous, with
countless nameable (and unnameable) colors in
between. I’ve taken the liberty of naming second-
ary and tertiary colors in the wheel. Because no
industry standards exist for these colors, I took
my names from other sources, including art sup-
ply houses and consumer paint vendors. I offer
them merely for reference, so you have a name to
go with the color.
The practical benefit is that you can use this wheel
to better predict a required Color Balance adjustment.
For example, the color orange is located midway between
red and yellow. Therefore, if you recognize that an image
The Visible-Color Spectrum Wheel 185