Using Photoshop to sample yarn over-dyes

November 25th, 2008 by Sadia

A question was posted on Ravelry asking about the use of Photoshop to sample over-dyeing yarn. As I’m always looking for new ways to show my Photoshop students to play with colorizing images, I took this challenge up and came up with a method that seems like it might be useful in doing actual over-dyes.

In the example below, I used Image>Adjustments>Photo Filter: I checked the color box and click the color to change to the overlay color I wanted to simulate, in this case a deep blue, then cranked the density up towards 100%. I selected a blue to overlay over the pink yarn in the example below:

Of course, real over-dye results will vary depending on the yarn, fiber type and dye you actually use, but this seemed like a way to get a ballpark look or play with color if you have an idea you want to experiment with. If you’re familiar with using masks you can also mask out certain areas or use selections to colorize parts of a skein of yarn for a variegated yarn design.

Your thoughts?

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3 Comments »

  1. seems like an interesting idea to test out different potential colours that you might want to dye over a yarn you have.. I might have to play to see how well it actually represents.

    Comment by Brooklynne — November 25, 2008 @ 1:18 am

  2. Hi, also Adjustment layer Solid Colour pick the colour, OK, then set to Overlay. Then with the fill regulate how dense the colour is gonna be. Also Hue/Saturation hitting separate colours to change the Hue, or a Selective colours to do the same thing without masking out.
    Kat :)

    Comment by Kat — November 25, 2008 @ 7:13 am

  3. yes, there are lots of opportunities to change the color as an Adjustment Layer as well.. thanks!

    Comment by sadia — December 7, 2008 @ 5:30 pm

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