Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
You can find terrific topics on color theory, written for both trained designers and those
with little or no experience. Let's face it, though. Most working professionals do not have
the time to delve deeply into a study of the complexities of using color. The good news is
you can use online resources to create harmonious color themes without having
advanced knowledge in color theory.
There are a few really good online resources such as ColorSchemer
(
www.colorschemer.com
) and COLOURlovers (
colourlovers.com
), but my personal
favorite is Kuler (
http://kuler.adobe.com
). Kuler is a Web-based color tool from Adobe
that has thousands of community-generated color themes that you can search. The best
thing about Kuler, however, is that you can easily make your own themes. Once you
register with Kuler, you can begin to create your own color themes or palettes and store,
view, and retrieve all your saved themes in your personal
Mykuler
space.
You can also use Kuler to create a color palette from colors in an image that is key to
your presentation. While you can do this in slideware, Kuler offers additional features
and the ability to tweak the colors. Here are the basic steps:
1. Click Create and on the next screen click From an Image. You can either click
Upload or Flickr to upload your photograph.
2. Kuler automatically extracts colors and generates a theme of five colors from the
image.
3. Adjust the theme (if you want) by changing what Kuler calls the “mood.” You can
select from Colorful, Bright, Muted, Deep, and Dark moods, which are based on
the colors extracted from your image.
4. Save the theme to your account. You can share it with the community if you like,
and even download it as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file as well.
5. To get the theme into your slideware, write down the color values from Kuler (you'll
find the values when you click the little slider icon in Kuler) and then create those
colors in your program's color palette (entering the values into your RGB slider).
You can also take a screenshot of the theme and then use your slideware's color
picker to save the colors into a new theme for your presentation, although it's not
as accurate.
Create themes in Kuler from an image
It has been said that nature is the perfect colorist, so why not try making a unique color
theme from a photo depicting a natural scene?
