“To paint well is simply this: to put the right color in the right place.” – Paul Klee

But for a photographer and digital artist, what if the color is already there, but you can’t see it?

Light, or visible light, is usually defined as the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to the human eye. The resulting perceived color of light is often discussed in subjective terms such as hue, value, tints, tones saturation and temperature.

With this in mind, I’m posting this rendering not so much for the subject matter but more for the color and a few thoughts on getting there. The original image was a washed out, pale, desaturated “blue”. But when I viewed it closely, I noticed there were other faint, subtle colors and hues as well. The challenge was to discover and bring them out. Many hours later and several fathoms of Photoshop layers this was what I ended up with.

I’d like to add that I’m continually amazed by the ability of today’s digital technology to capture and render the color and hues of light whether you can see them or not. So often, the colors, tones, and tints are there, you just have to find a way to tease them out and give them an aloha hug. At this point it begins to become subjective and, as they say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or, in my case, the eye of a neophyte “artist”.

click to enlarge