Max-ing Out the Saturation

Gasoline Slick Copyright 2005 Jeff Wignall

I first started experimenting with color photography when I was a teenager in the mid 1960's. During that time I hung out in store that I thought was possibly the coolest store on earth--a head shop lovingly titled "Know Place." Know Place had a huge impact on my life not only because it was the hippest place in town and I was in the inner circle there, but because everything that was artistically hip and happening passed through those doors. And in the mid 1960's what was happening artistically was an explosion of Day-Glo posters.

The colors of the posters were spectacular--bright neon reds and blues and yellows and greens. Day-Glo embellished posters of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison lined every wall of the long narrow store (which, to make my parents even more nervous, was in the seediest section of town). At the far end of the store was the inner sanctum of the inner circle, a small room (with a mattress on the floor) known as the "Black Light Room." And that it was: a room painted entirely black and enshrined like a small cathedral with dozens, if not hundreds, of the coolest posters that were ever set to paper and lit only with black light.

Most of the artists were anonymous (at least to teenagers laying on a mattress and gawking up at them in the near darkness), but one artist, German-born color pioneer Peter Max (who moved to America the year I was born), was already a celebrity. And I loved Max's posters. His sense of design and color were unreal--they sent my young and very impressionable mind reeling and all I ever wanted to do was to find some method for creating those colors with a camera.

I tried various things: silksreening my photos (I had some luck with that), using Kodalith films to create "posterized" large-format negatives that I then printed on Cibachrome color print material, etc. But nothing gave me that Max look.

You can imagine then how excited I was nearly 30 years later to discover Photoshop. From the first time I started playing with Photoshop there was one tool that caught my imagination: Hue and Saturation. Just this one tool is capable of creating some of the wildest colors you can imagine.

The shots shown here are of a small gasoline slick that I photographed early one morning in a motel parking lot in Massachusetts. The colors looked great in the early morning light, but they died in the translation to digital. The first shot is just a straight shot with a small Levels adjustment made to try and bring up some color and contrast. I knew I could just use the basic Hue and Saturation control to enhance the color, but I wanted to tweak each color individually.

Then one night while reading an article by Ben Wilmore he reminded me that by using the pull-down menu that is hidden under the "Master" box in the Hue and Saturation dialog box you can jazz up individual colors. So I tried it and WOW! Goldmine!

Here's all you do: After you have an image chosen and you've done a basic Levels control, open the Hue and Saturation tool (use an adjustment layer so you can trash the effect if you don't like it) and then pull down the sub menu hidden under the Master box. Then simply adjust the sliders to funk up the hue and saturation.

Sometimes the simplest tricks are the most fun. By the way, I flipped the colorized version vertically just because I like the way the color rings looked more in that orientation.

The technique is a long way from the genius of Peter Max, but when you need a quick color fix it can be a lot of fun. Just put some Hendrix music on in the background and head back to the 60's. It's great fun! And the colors do remind me of those glory days on the mattress in Know Place--wondering how something as simple as color could make my pulse race so very fast.

Think digital, Think Joy!

Comments

[donna rae moratelli]

EXCELLENT Blog; Jeff!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You really gave me a flashback...I did the same thing.
I love Peter Max and actually miss those head shops with all of the incence and Intense,colors,colors,colors.

[Jeff Wignall]

Hi Donna--I miss the head shops too! Hey, in two weeks is the anniversary of the orginal Woodstock and (as old as it makes me) I am happy to say I was there!!!

[donna rae moratelli]

Woodstock, Wow;Jeff! I wish that I could have gone. You were very fortunate to have been there!!.. They were great days to be growing up.
I'm a little bit younger but I experienced the 60's in the early 70's and they were wonderful times. Life was easier for kids back then.
Thanks for the memories and a great lesson in color saturation.!

[Jeff Wignall]

Hi Donna Rae,

Yeah, Woodstock (36 years ago!) was a lot of fun (and also terrifying at times)--and I have always been grateful that I was there. I think the innocent days of 500,000 kids gathering for fun and music ("...and nothing but fun and music" as Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm once said) are past, but maybe not...time will tell. Those were very rare and exciting days.

jeff