Make colors pop on dark background

[Michael Sheaver]

When the Designer for iPad was released back in July, I read the post on Affinity Spotlight showing the works of artists who had used the beta version (https://affinityspotlight.com/article/affinity-designer-for-ipad-a-special-beta/), and I was immediately captivated by the work by Ilya Shapko titled "Mystic Beast":

I am trying to produce these same effects in my own works, and not sure I nailed it yet. I did find and download the color palette for this work from Dribbble: (https://dribbble.com/shots/4821906-Mystic-Beast), but it appears that he used some effects that I am as yet unaware of.

Does anyone here know what tricks (bright/contrast adjustment, etc.) he used to produce these stunningly eye-popping effects, which layers/elements he applied them to, and how he applied them? I checked his website a while back, and someone else had already asked him to produce a tutorial showing how he did this, but I don't think is he inclined to do so.

I did do two projects from the Affinity Designer Workbook (which is itself an exquisite work of art and beauty) titled "The Panther" and "Reflected Skyline", both of which are colorful works with dark backgrounds. However, neither of them really discuss how to make the colors pop like Ilya is able to do.

If anyone knows of other places where I can go to learn this, please do share.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Michael Sheaver said:

Does anyone here know what tricks (bright/contrast adjustment, etc.) he used to produce these stunningly eye-popping effects, which layers/elements he applied them to, and how he applied them?

There are some hints in the ‘Antelope drawing process’ animated GIF on this Behance page, but beyond spotting that he applied gradient fills and glow effects I can’t say exactly what he did.

[firstdefence]

A quick sketch to show how some of the effects might have been done, a lot of this is gradients and fx with blend mode set to glow.

Tiger Face.afdesign

[Alfred]

Very nicely done, Dex, but ... tiger face??

[firstdefence]

Was going to do the stripes but realised I was supposed to be at work not doodling on the Mac lol! 

[gdenby]

Hi, Michael Shaver,

Most of the "pop" has less to do w. the colors, and much more to due the luminance value of each area. Contrast is not the quite quite right term, because there is both color and B & W contrast. The eye mostly sees in grey scale, elicited from the large numbers of "rod" cells.. The larger the difference between  B & W, the clearer the form is.

Use an HSL  adjustment on the original image, drop the saturation to zero (no color) and note that the image by its luminance still shows  clear forms. Note how the colored eyebrows, nose and lip lines become close to black. Their color was not very important to see those as prominent features. 

The color issue, from my understanding, is this. The "cone"  cells have the strongest response between antagonist colors. The shape is defined by differences between opposite colors. Blue vs yellow, red vs green. etc. Standard  art teaching I received was that warm colors stand in contrast to cool colors. This is a very inexact description. For instance, a saturated yellow has a perceived luminance above 90%, while a saturated blue is in the low 40%.  In that case, the luminance perception based on the color alone is much more dramatic than from other color pairs.

 

If there are areas of high color contrast, the receptors get tired rather quickly, and if one stares off to look at a neutral grey, one will see the image in the reverse color scheme. This was often used in late '60s Op-Art to produce novel transient effects while viewing the art work, and experiencing the effect during the normal saccadic eye trembles.

However, if one does not bump together antagonist colors, but ones within the same color range, there is a boost effect. Resonance, if you will. If there is a luminance variation, the shapes remain clear, but the color perception remains high for a longer time. Eventually, the cone cells will tire, but the immediate response is a perception of very intense colors. Note how in the "Mystic beast" the yellow to red shapes are separate from the blue-ish ones.  There isn't much "antagonist" variance as if they were interspersed.

 

Hope this helps you get a handle on the topic.