photo realistic coloring in photoshop

[zoran]

A card board packaging box will be offset printed and i want to make coloured variations to show the client a photorealistic mockup. What the client sees must be as close to printed thing as possible. Pantone colours will be used, but i don’t know what technique i must apply to photoshop in order to see real colours when colouring with pantone. The surface i will colorise is just a photorealistic side of the box with shadows and highlights to give the impression of shadows. Problem is when must colour a layer i have no clue what layer setting must be applied. There are many to choose, overlay, color, hue, saturation, multiply, darken etc. Any ideas?

Do i make any sense?

 

[LERsince1991]

I would say you would get great results with overlay visually and is likely to be similar to real life if printing on brown card for example. i.e. colours will mix.

I think you need to approach it in two ways, first the digital, get it to look how they like on screen/test printed on paper.

Next you should try to replicate that digital representation in physical test printing using our actual material - probably printers would help with this colour matching.


I doubt you can get the colours to mix accurately on screen like that, and i don't know the maths behind each blend mode but overlay would probably be good. Just try them out! Adobe also has an explanation of each blend mode which might help you understand more about the maths behind them.

I believe blend modes are the single most powerful part of photoshop! I use them all the time, blending colours into architectural visualisations and materials (such as wood) as tonal overlays.

 

[zoran]

I think you caught my drift thats what im looking for. To know which blend modes do i use and for what purposes. Btw where does Adobe asay about blend modes?

 

[filmbufs]

If you're worried about true pantone colors while printing, I'm not sure using a blend mode will give you true feedback of that printed color since you will be essentially altering that color.

But, blending modes are wonderful and powerful. For my work, I tend to use Normal, Multiply, Screen and Overlay, as appropriate. Here is a link from Adobe explaining what each blending mode does. As always, experimenting with each mode will prove valuable.