Photography color matching aesthetics: cold and warm contrast, complementary colors, adjacent colors and film-level Teal & Orange tonal refinement

1. Eaton color circle and three classic color matching composition rules

Johannes Itten's 12 hue wheel is the color base for all visual art:

1. Complementary Colors - 180° Strong Collision:

• Two groups of opposite colors on the hue wheel: red and green, yellow and purple, blue and orange;
• Visual Physiological Mechanism: When the cone cells in the human retina are stimulated by a certain extreme color, they will automatically produce visual afterimages of complementary colors (visual physiological balance requirements). Complementary colors appearing at the same time in the picture will produce the strongest contrast, vitality and visual impact;

2. Adjacent colors/similar color composition (Analogous Colors - 30°~60° harmonious unity):

• Adjacent colors on the hue wheel (such as yellow, yellow-green, green, or dark blue, cyan, violet);
• Minimal visual conflict, bringing tranquility, harmony, healing and calm orderly beauty, often used for shooting forest nature, morning mist and rivers;

3. Monochromatic and brightness levels (Monochromatic - high-level subtraction):

• Only a single hue is retained in the entire frame, and the tone is shaped only by the level of value (Value) and the shade of saturation (Saturation). It is the most advanced color scheme with the coldest sense of modern art.

2. The physiological optical code behind the movie-level Teal & Orange

Whether it is Hollywood science fiction masterpieces ("Transformers", "Blade Runner 2049") or top fashion business portraits, why do Teal and Orange dominate the entire modern visual image?

1. The only physical and biological constant for human skin color:

• No matter whether the human race is white, yellow, black or brown, the hemoglobin and epidermal melanin of the subcutaneous blood are analyzed under a spectrometer;
• The inherent colors of all human skin are strictly and constantly distributed in a very narrow range from red-orange to orange-yellow on the hue circle (hue is about 25°~35°);

2. Maximum Visual Separation:

• If the background is also warm yellow or red earth, the character's face will be "chaotically stuck" to the background;
• The director and colorist looked 180° to the opposite pole along the orange color of the human face on the hue circle, and right there was the cool and deep teal (Teal, hue about 190°~210°)**!
• Dye the background, shadows, and sky with a layer of cool cyan blue, and the warm orange on the character's face will be 'ejected out of the screen' on the retina like electricity, forming the ultimate three-dimensional sense of subject and dramatic tension!

3. The 60:30:10 golden color space ratio rule for commercial and landscape photography

Advanced composition is by no means a chaotic collection of palettes, but a strict hierarchical order of area:

• Dominant Color - takes up about 60% of the screen area:
• Lays the overall emotional foundation of the entire photo; usually low saturation or neutral colors (such as the blue-gray of a large area of cloudy sky, the dark green of the lush forest, the inky black of the city at night);
• Secondary Color (Secondary Color - takes up about 30% of the screen area):
• Support the main colors to form layers and spatial divisions (such as the warm brick red of the building, the beige of the beach, the light gray coat of the characters);
• Accent Color - only takes up about 10% of the screen area:
• Must be high purity, high saturation or strong complementary colors (such as the red jacket of a hiker in red in the vast snow-capped mountains, a warm red lantern on a green and cold street, a bright yellow umbrella held up by a gloomy crowd on a rainy day);
• This 10% small area of color is the ‘visual magnet’ that instantly captures the viewer’s first visual focus!

4. Practical Guide to Color Purification at the Shooting Scene and in Digital Post-production

The difference between a master and a mediocre photo is ‘restraint’:

1. Color subtraction on the shooting scene:

• Before raising your camera, look around the viewfinder and ask yourself: ‘Are there more than 3 conflicting colors in the frame? ’ If so, move your feet and pan the camera to remove the unsightly red plastic bags and yellow warning barrels in the corners of the screen from the viewfinder;

2. HSL (hue/saturation/lightness) purification in digital post-processing:

• In the HSL panel of Adobe Lightroom, directly lower the [saturation] of unwanted noise in the picture (such as purple and magenta that occasionally steal the spotlight) or even return it to zero;
• Unify the chaotic greens towards dark cyan or warm yellow to make the color family purer;

3. Practical combat of color grading/three-way color wheel:

• [Shadows]: Inject a small amount of cyan blue (hue 205°, saturation 15~25) to create a calm and low-key atmosphere like a movie;
• [Highlights]: Inject a small amount of warm golden orange (hue 45°, saturation 10~20) to simulate the gentle affinity of natural sunlight or tungsten lamps.