Converting To Indexed Color (Photoshop); Applying Colors; Making Color And Tonal Adjustments - Adobe PHOTOSHOP 6.0 Manual

CHAPTER 3
118
Working with Color
Converting to indexed color
(Photoshop)
Converting to indexed color reduces the
number of colors in the image to at most 256—
the standard number of colors supported by the
GIF and PNG-8 formats and many multimedia
applications. This conversion reduces file size by
deleting color information from the image.
To convert to indexed color, you must start with
either a grayscale or RGB image.
To convert a grayscale or RGB image to indexed color:
Choose Image > Mode > Indexed Color.
1
Note: The image must be flattened first, or you will
lose layers.
For grayscale images, the conversion happens
automatically. For RGB images, the Indexed Color
dialog box appears.
Select Preview the Indexed Color dialog box to
2
display a preview of the changes.
Specify conversion options.
3
For information on conversion options and
customizing indexed color tables, see
"Conversion options for indexed-color images
(Photoshop)" in online Help.
Click OK.
4

Applying colors

Once you have set up the color mode for an image,
you can specify a foreground and background
color by using the eyedropper tool, the Color
palette, the Swatches palette, or a color picker.
Photoshop uses the foreground color to paint, fill,
and stroke selections and the background color to
make gradient fills and fill in erased areas of an
image. The foreground and background colors are
also used by some special-effects filters.
For information on specifying foreground
and background colors; using the painting,
erasing, art history, and gradient tools; and filling
and stroking selections and layers, see "Painting"
in online Help. For information on filters,
see "Applying filters for special effects" in
online Help.
Making color and tonal
adjustments
When you photograph, scan, or resample images,
you can often introduce problems involving color
quality and tonal range. Photoshop provides a
comprehensive set of tools for making color and
tonal corrections and sharpening the overall focus
of an image. ImageReady provides many of the
basic correction tools.
For more information, see "Making color
and tonal adjustments" in online Help.