Get Phase From

The color attribute to use as input. Choose Zero to use a color attribute from another layer.

Add Phase

The second layer to use as input. To use only this layer as input, select Zero for Get Phase From; otherwise, both the Add Phase layer and the layer to which the effect is applied are used. You can choose the layer to which the effect is applied to add a second input attribute from the same layer.

Add Phase From

The color attribute from the second layer to use as input.

Add Mode

How input values are combined:

Wrap

Adds the values of the two attributes for each pixel. Values above 100% are wrapped around the cycle again. For example, a sum of 125% wraps around to 25%.

Clamp

Adds the values of the two attributes for each pixel. Values above 100% are clipped to 100%.

Average

Averages the values of the two attributes for each pixel. Because the average of two values that are each in the range 0% to 100% is never over 100%, wrapping and clamping by this operation are never necessary. Average is therefore the safest option for predictable output.

Screen

Screens the second layer over the original layer; the brighter areas in the second layer brighten the first layer, and the darker areas in the second layer are discarded. Screen mode is especially useful for compositing fire, lens flares, and other lighting effects.

Phase Shift

The point on the Output Cycle wheel at which the mapping of the input colors begins. A positive value moves the starting point clockwise around the Output Cycle wheel.

Animate Phase Shift to cycle colors around the wheel.

Use Preset Palette

Presets for the Output Cycle. The top palettes are designed for quick color correction and adjustment tasks. The bottom choices offer a variety of built-in color palettes for creative results.

Output Cycle

Customize the output color palette by altering the colors and locations of the triangles on the Output Cycle wheel. The triangles specify the location on the color wheel where a specific color occurs. The color between triangles is smoothly interpolated, unless Interpolate Palette is deselected. Each Output Cycle can have 1-64 triangles.

• To change a triangle’s location, drag the triangle. Shift-drag to snap the triangle to 45-degree increments. At the top of the wheel, the triangle snaps to either the start position or end position depending on whether you drag from the left or right.

• To add a triangle, click in or near the wheel, and select a color from the color picker. Click slightly to the left of the top arrows for the end color, and slightly to the right for the start color.

• To duplicate a triangle, Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) the triangle.

• To delete a triangle, drag it away from the wheel.

• To change the opacity, select a triangle on the color wheel and then drag the attached triangle above the opacity slider. Make sure that Modify Alpha is selected if you want the opacity information to affect your output.

Note: When you animate the Output Cycle, a triangle’s position and color are interpolated between keyframes. For best results, make sure that all keyframes have the same number of Output Cycle triangles.

Cycle Repetitions

How many iterations of the Output Cycle the input color range is mapped to. The default value of 1 maps the input range to one iteration of the Output Cycle, from input black at the top of the Output Cycle wheel, clockwise to input white at the top of the Output Cycle wheel. A value of 2 maps the input range to two iterations of the Output Cycle. Use this option to create a simple palette and repeat it many times throughout a gradient.

Interpolate Palette

Colors between triangles are interpolated smoothly. When this option is deselected, output colors are posterized.

Modify controls specify which color attributes are modified by the Colorama effect. For subtle refinement of images, choose the same color attribute for Input Phase and Modify. For example, choose Hue from both menus to simply adjust Hue.

Modify

The color attribute to modify.

Modify Alpha

Modifies alpha channel values.

Note: If you apply Colorama to a layer with an alpha channel, and the Output Cycle doesn’t contain alpha information, the anti-aliased edges of the layer may appear pixelated. To smooth the edges, deselect Modify Alpha. If Modify Alpha is selected and the Output Cycle contains alpha information, the output is affected even if you’ve selected None from the Modify menu. Using this method, you can adjust the levels of just the alpha channel without also changing the RGB information.

Change Empty Pixels

The Colorama effect’s influence extends to transparent pixels. (This setting works only if Modify Alpha is selected.)

These controls determine which pixels are affected. For the Matching controls for Pixel Selection to work, Matching Mode must be set to anything other than Off.

Matching Color

The center of the range of colors of pixels to be affected by the Colorama effect. To select a specific color in the image using the eyedropper, turn off the Colorama effect temporarily by clicking its Effect switch in the Effect Controls panel.

Matching Tolerance

How far a color can be from Matching Color and still be affected by the Colorama effect. When Matching Tolerance is 0, only the exact color selected for Matching Color is affected by Colorama. When Matching Tolerance is 1, all colors are matched; this value essentially turns Matching Mode off.

Matching Softness

How smoothly the matched pixels blend into the rest of the image. For example, if you have an image of a man wearing a red shirt and blue pants, and you want to change the color of the pants from blue to red, subtly adjust Matching Softness to spread the matching from the blue in the pants into the shadows of the pants folds. If you adjust it too high, the matching spreads to the blue of the sky; if you adjust it even higher, the matching spreads to his red shirt.

Matching Mode

What color attributes are compared to determine matching. In general, use RGB for high-contrast graphics and Chroma for photographic images.

Mask Layer

The layer to use as a matte. Masking Mode specifies what attribute of the Mask Layer is used to define the matte.

Composite Over Layer

Shows modified pixels composited on top of the original layer. Deselect this option to show only modified pixels.

Blend With Original

The effect’s transparency. The result of the effect is blended with the original image, with the effect result composited on top. The higher you set this value, the less the effect affects the layer. For example, if you set this value to 100%, the effect has no visible result on the layer; if you set this value to 0%, the original image doesn’t show through.