Interpreting the stand-alone hue clock reading

[mikemeister_admin]

I found the hue clock to be a very useful tool.  I think I understand that the position of the hand reflects the Hue of the point -- is the length of the hand related to the saturation?  What does it mean when the hand turns red?  Does the image you are measuring have to be in the RGB color space?  I've noticed that I get strange results if I convert an image into LAB.

Thanks!

Gus

[ggroess]

Hi Gus,
The stand alone clock shows you the pixel values on the screen.  The length is the saturation.  The color is obvious...If you use the stand alone over an image in PS you might get different results than you get on the web for instance...

Mike is the technical guru..this is really his area....Mike????


Greg

[-default]

Greg is spot on in his description of the Hue Clock.  I would add that Photoshop's cursor sometimes interferes with the operation of the Hue clock, since it modifies pixel data under the cursor.  If this happens, the Hue clock will jiggle around.  To stop this from happening, hold down the space key to activate Photoshop's hand cursor, which does not cause this problem.  This may be what you are seeing in Lab mode.

[mikemeister_admin]

Mike and Greg,

Thanks for you quick response!  Appreciate the hint about activating the hand tool.  I couldn't figure out what was causing the jiggle and jumpy behavior.

Gus