Installation:
Photoshop has a special window for Actions. Make sure that's open.
- Download the iColorIllusion.atn file seen in this list. Right click on it for download options.
(Mac single button mouse: Option + click for Save File To Desktop option.)- The file is just 4 kilobytes, but contains at least 20 kilobytes of fun. You may get this a lot: "Can you do that with MY picture???" And of course, you can.
- Use the Load Actions option from the Actions palette's own Menu. It's in the upper right corner of the Actions Palette.
Using the iColorIllusion1 Action:
- Open any horizontal image of 2+ megabytes in Photoshop 7, CS, CS2 or CS3. (Sorry, Actions only run in these programs, and not in Photoshop Elements.)
- Run the iColorIllusion1 Action inside the iColorIllusion.atn folder. Not all versions of Photoshop keep that little ".atn" suffix, so it may not show in the folder's name.
- Actions run in List view (run arrow at bottom of the Actions palette) or Button mode (click on its name).
- Along the way, you will be reminded that the image will become just 600 pixels tall, and that you can move the white hold-focus-here dot to your image's center of interest. Every shot wants that dot in a different spot. Our model, above has it in mid-sunglasses.
- Once you place it, click RETURN and finish the Action.
- A two-layer snapshot will be saved in the History Palette. You might have to open that one, too. It's under Windows in the Header Bar.
- The top layer is called COLOR. Below it is B&W. Each has the same focus dot.
- Move your cursor over the eye icon next to the COLOR layer. You will want to switch visibility of this layer off without hunting for it in a moment.
- Gaze into the focus dot of the COLOR layer. Hold it in your eye for 20+ seconds.
- Now click Off the layer visibility. Poof! You see a full-color image.
If you look around the scene, the color instantly evaporates. But if you snap your gaze back to the focus dot, some of the color returns. You can always click the COLOR layer back to charge up your eyes.
Steady focus without looking away causes the cone cells of your retina to locally adapt to the color. It's one reason our eyes adapt to different colors of ambient light so easily. If you look at the COLOR layer for a while, then look at a white or gray surface, you see the opposite colors, but not a full color photographic image.
The B&W layer gives your adapted eyes a structure to hold the colors your eyes are generating. It looks at first like a normal color image. But your eyes keep adapting, so it quickly fades.
If you make a mistake, click the top picture in the History Palette. That's your original, so you can do it all over again quite quickly. Try different guesses for the Center Of Interest. In a very real way, playing with this is COI training. When you get it right, your eye is less tempted to wander when the full color picture kicks in.
We have a whole book of custom digital photography Actions for advanced photographers and professional photo illustrators. Click this link to find out more about Lights... Digital Photography... ACTIONS!, a 248-page interactive electronic book and software combination available on CD or USB Flash Drive. Find out more about that after the jump.
© 2008 Peter iNova, all rights reserved.