AHow To Add Color To Black and White Photos in Photoshop

by Kaitlyn Miller in Art Tutorials > Photoshop Tricks . . . . Published Apr. 29th 2008

NOTE: If the following tutorial feels overwhelming, or youre just not interested in learning the software and would rather pay a professional, there ARE other options. Head over to ColoraPhoto.com to find out more. For everybody else, heres how to color your photographs yourself: One of Adobe Photoshops best features is the ability it gives you to colorize black and white photographs. With Photoshop you can add color to the entire photo, or just paint one part of the image to create a focal pointits up to you. Sound interesting? Then read through the following step by step instructions. It doesnt matter if youre a Photoshop novice or expert, within minutes youll be able to use this essential Photoshop technique to bring your black and white photos to life.

Adding color to a black and white photo

First, open the image you want to colorizepreferably a black and white image with a good range of values from darkest black to pure white.

Next, go to Image >> Mode and make sure that RGB is selected. This will allow you to use the most vibrant colors possible.

Now its time to select the area of your photo that youd like to colorIll walk you through the selection method that I prefer. Double-click the Quick Mask button near the base of your toolbar to bring up the Quick Mask options. Under Color Indicates choose Selected Areas and press OK.

At this point youll also be in Quick Mask mode, although it wont look any different at first. Choose the Paintbrush from your toolbar and start painting over the area that youve decided to add some color to.

Dont worry, youre not really coloring anything yetthis portion will just appear to be red so you can see the area youre selecting. After completely covering the chosen area. . .

. . .click on the Quick Mask button again. This will will put you back to Normal mode. Youll notice that the area which you just filled in with color is now selected.

Pause for a moment and save the selected area for later use (or in case you make a mistake). Do this by going to Select >> Save Selection. OK, its time to finally add some color to your selection. Click on Layer >> New Adjustment

Layer >> Color Balance.

Click OK on the first dialog box, and the following color sliders will appear.

Put a checkmark in the preview box and adjust the color sliders until you get a color you like for the selected area. Then click OK.

If there are other areas that you want to colorize, just repeat the previous steps again on a new section. Thats all there is to it!

Final photo-coloring advice

It will take some trial and error to get your photo looking exactly the way you want it to. Using Quick Mask to select the areas will require some practice as well. You might find yourself changing the Color Balance sliders for each area again and again thats because even when you think you have the colors right where you want them, they have a

way of looking a lot different when the whole photo is colorized. Just keep tweaking the sliders until you get the balance youre looking for. Remember to save! Always! Save the original picture before you begin. Save every selection as you make it in Quick Mask mode. And save your project after you colorize each section. Its a real pain to go back and re-do past sections of the photo just because youve messed up somewhere down the line. Kaitlyn Miller writes for Printplace.com, an online printing company that offers postcard printing, business cards, posters and more. To contact a professional photo editor, visit ColoraPhoto.com.

Adding Color to Black & White Images in Photoshop 7 By Al Ward of Action Fx Photoshop Resources Dateline: June 4, 2003 Volume 1, Number 1 Post comments in the Photoshop forum There are quite a few tutorials online dealing with removing color from images to gain crisp black and white versions. I've written a few myself. The thought occurred to me this morning that there really isn't much that I've seen showing how to add realistic color to a black and white image. This takes some time, patience and a bit of savvy, using tool and blending mode combinations, but it can produce some very realistic results. I'll be showing you how to colorize an image in Photoshop 7, but you should be able to replicate the effects in earlier versions or other image editing applications. For this tutorial I'll be using an example image from Photos.com. (Right-click on the image to download it, if you want to follow along using the same photo). The folks at Photos.com have been very gracious in allowing me to use their images for my tutorials and it has become my favorite photo site, due to the quality and wide variety of images available. If you haven't done so, I suggest you check them out. Now, on to the image.

This young lady seems a bit down in the dumps. A little forlorn, a little blue... she could use a makeover! Okay, maybe I have been spending too much time watching TV with my wife. But I think we can at least make a try at cheering her up.

First, let's duplicate the original image and place a copy in its own layer. I always keep a copy of the original on hand.

Duplicate the Background layer one more time. Make the top copy invisible for now and select the copy just above the background. We are going to begin our colorizing with the hair on this layer.

Click the Create a New Adjustment Layer icon on the bottom of the Layers Palette, or just go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer. Select Hue/Saturation.

In the Hue/Saturation dialog box, check Colorize in the lower-right corner. Move the sliders to get a nice sepia/brown overall tone, as shown below. When satisfied, click OK.

Now select the topmost layer. This is the one we made invisible earlier. We'll perform the majority of our colorizing here.

Click the Add a Mask icon on the bottom of the Layers Palette. Your foreground and background colors will change to Black/White respectively when working on the mask. If white shows up in the foreground, hit the D key to place black in the front, white in the back.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with masks, this is the one rule that you need to know: Black hides, and White reveals. What do I mean by that, you ask? Well, the best way to describe it is to simply show you. When you paint with black in a Layer Mask, that portion of the layer contents becomes invisible, revealing the layer beneath. So when I paint with black in the mask where the hair is on the left side of the image, the layer we just colored beneath is revealed in those areas.

Go ahead and try it, painting all the areas where you see hair. Try adjusting your brush size so that only the hair is revealed.

Now select the image icon in the same layer. This allows you to work on the actual pixels in the layer rather than the mask.

Go to Image > Adjustment > Hue/Saturation. Again, click the Colorize box. Adjust the tone of the layer until you get a subtle flesh tone in the skin. When satisfied, click OK.

Click on the foreground color in the toolbar to open the Color Picker dialog box. Select a tone for the eyes in this case I'm going to color them blue. When you have your color, click OK.

This part is important, and is a great trick for coloring eyes, lips, and so forth. Select the Paintbrush tool. Choose a feathered brush no larger than you need for the area you will be working on (in this case the iris). Set the Blending Mode for the brush to Color. Set the Opacity to 50% and the Flow to 60%.

Paint right over the irises. Note that when painting in the Color blending mode the white areas are not colored, only the darker areas are changed.

We can use this same trick on the lips. Select a reddish hue as your foreground color and, using the same process as the eyes, color the lips with the Paintbrush.

Let's take a look at the entire image and check our progress thus far. Here's mine (compare it to the original).

If the next few steps seem a bit overdone, you will have to forgive me. I am not in the habit of applying makeup, so the whole concept of what tones go with what skin type eludes me. I think you will pick up what I'm trying to do, though. Create a new layer. Set the Blending Mode for this layer to Overlay.

To work on the eyelashes, brows and lids we need a darker tone. Click the foreground color again to open the color picker and select a dark hue. I'm using a dark blue/gray.

Select the Paintbrush again and paint over the lashes, brows and lids.

Change the foreground color to a lighter blue/gray. Select the layer with the mask and click on the Paintbrush tool. Keep the Blending Mode of the brush as Color, and paint the areas where you would like the eyeliner and mascara.

Now we can enhance and darken areas with the Burn tool. Select the Burn tool on the toolbar. Set the range to Shadows and Exposure to 20%.

Run the Burn tool lightly over the lips, brows, and areas where the makeup was applied. Select the top layer again. We can give the lips a bit more color by painting in this layer with a red/brown. Open the foreground color picker again. Select a tone (brown/red) for the lips and click OK.

Select the Paintbrush again, in Color Mode. Paint over the lips.

There you have it. I've made two examples for you using the same process, so you can see what it looks like with more or less makeup. For contrast, take another look at the original

image.

I hope you enjoyed the image colorization process outlined here and I encourage you to try this on your own photos. Until next time, I'll see you at Action Fx! Discuss this column with Al Ward in the Photoshop forum. Don't miss the next installment of this column. Get the free Graphics.com newsletter in your mailbox each week (and win great graphics products). Click here to subscribe. Want to add to your own COOL FACTOR? Al Ward, the author of this column and NAPP Actions Guru, offers thousands of Photoshop goodies for download on his website (http://actionfx.com)! He also has several Photoshop Goodies available on CD. So who is this Al guy anyway? He has co-authored Photoshop Most Wanted: Effects and Design Tips , a manual of popular Photoshop Special Effects and Foundation Photoshop 6.0 from Friends of Ed Publishing. Al is the Author of Adobe Elements 2 Special Effects, a new solo title from Hungry Minds/Wiley Publishing. He has been a contributor to Photoshop User Magazine, a contributing writer for Photoshop Elements 2- 50 Ways to Create Cool Pictures , Photoshop 7 Effects Magic , Inside Photoshop 6 and Special Edition Inside Photoshop 6 from New Riders Publishing, and writes for several Photoshop related websites including the National Association of Photoshop Professional s Official Website, PhotoshopUser.com, Planet Photoshop and the Photoshop Caf. Al was a panelist at the Photoshop World 2001 Los Angeles Conference, and contributes to the official NAPP website as the Actions area coordinator. Al lists Scott Kelby, Editor-In-Chief of Photoshop User Magazine as his Hero, Coffee as his favorite food group, and Sleep as the one pastime he d like to take up some day.
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How to Use Selective Coloring in Photoshop

Edited by Corey Smallwood, Maluniu, PlaidDogDesign, Sportheart and 5 others
555 Article Edit Discuss

Every wanted take a a picture,make it black and white then return the color to certain parts...follow these easy steps

Edit Steps

Photoshop CS and earlier

1. 1

Click To Enlarge Open Adobe photoshop and open a picture 2. 2

Click To Enlarge Go to "Layers" and duplicate the layer,this will create an extra layer located in the lower right hand corner 3. 3

Click To Enlarge On the duplicated layer,turn it black and white 4. 4

Create a layer mask for your black and white layer by clicking the icon at the bottom of your layers palette. Create a layer mask for your black and white layer by clicking the icon at the bottom of your layers palette. 5. 5 This adds a white (blank) mask in your layers palette linked to the image. Click the mask icon to select it. 6. 6

Click To Enlarge Now grab the brush tool in you toolbox and mask the section you want colored by painting directly onto the mask (black will hide the layer and show the color layer underneath, white will show the layer and keep the black and white version). 7. 7

Click To Enlarge Now combine the two layers and save and Bam! you have a cool new picture.

Photoshop CS2 and higher

1. 1

Click To Enlarge Open Adobe photoshop and open a picture 2. 2 From the layers palette click on the adjustments layer icon and select Black & White.

3. 3 This creates a new adjustment layer with a blank layer mask. To bring color back to a certain area simply click on the mask icon to select it and paint with black to hide the effect. 4. 4 If you mess up, switch to white to bring the black and white effect back in. .

#40 How to add color to black and white photo in Photoshop CS6-Tricky Photoshop
0 05 Aug 2012 by Vaibhav Sharan 0 inShare 1

Heres the effect

The photo Ill be working with

Dont Have So Much Time to Spend? Just click here and colorize your old black and white images or your old black and white memories by Photoshop experts.

Hello guys I am Vaibhav and in this tutorial I am going to show you how to colors to your photo using Photoshop CS6. Turning a photo to black and white is relatively much simpler than turning the black and white photo to colored one. There are many ways to convert a colored photo to black and white but there is only one method to convert black and white photo to colored. If you are thinking of hue & saturation and then click on t colorize option than you are completely wrong. I am leaving this task to use to find out why hue & sat will not work. The only method is to color the photo step by step. I found this photo through Flickr via creative common search. If your photo is not black and white but color casted(tinted) with any color like morning blue, sepia etc. then you refer to How to remove colorcast (tint) from a photo using Photoshop CS6. This method will work on most black and white photo. I am just going to use selection tools, curves, and hue.

STEP 1: CHANGE THE MODE TO CMYK

First off I am going to change the color mode to CMYK. CMYK stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow Key(Black). By changing the mode to CMYK, Photoshop will give my photo a bit stronger effect. You can adjust it by going to image>mode>CMYK Color. Leave the photo to be 8bits/channel.

STEP 2
So here the fun begins. In this step I am going to select the area which I want to be colored. As this photo is completely black and white so its up to us what should we choose. We can change the paint the sky with blue, golden etc. Its totally up to us. I am going to start with the sky. I think sky is the best place to start with. I am going to select the sky with quick selection tool. You can choose whatever the tool you want. I think quick selection tool will be easy for me to select the sky. I am going to select it by pressing shift+W until it comes. You can also select it from the left panel.

As you can see in the above pic that my selection is not perfect. I have not selected the barely visible sky through the trees and I am not even going to select that. Instead of selecting that I am going to use refine edge tool. Refine edge tools is the best thing when you are selecting hairs, trees etc. Simply click on the refine edge in the option bar.

After opening the refine edge tool press B to view the selection in black background. As the sky is generally is of light color so it is best to see it with black background. You can also change the view mode by dropping sown the view mode menu. Below is the photo that down not contains any refine edge tool.

In the refine edge box , select smart radius and then increase the pixels as per your requirement. I am going to set the pixels to its maximum value i.e. 250.

You can see the difference between the two photos and can realize the power of refine edge tool.

STEP 3
In this step I am going to open the layer palette by pressing F7. In the layer palette click on add adjustment layer. Then select Curves. In the curves, drop down the CMYK menu and then click on cyan. You can see that the histogram color has changed to cyan. As sky is mainly of cyan color so I an going to increase the cyan color simply by lifting up the line.

Now adjust the rest of the colors to give more realistic look to your sky.

STEP 4
Now I am going to select the trees. Once again I am going to use the quick selection tool to select the trees. You can also use magic wand tool to select the trees. I recommend you to not to choose polygonal lasso tool or pen tool because it is nearly impossible to select the tree with that selection tools. After selecting that once again apply refine edge. Once again add the curve adjustment layer and this time try to adjust cyan, magenta, yellow and black in such a way that the trees looks like green in color.

You can fill your tree with whatever the color you want. Its totally depends on your creativity.

STEP 5
Its time to fill the roof. I am going to fill it with red color. The procedure is same. Select the area then add curve adjustment layer and then edit CMYK curve.

STEP 6
Time to fill the wall with yellow color with same procedure. But for the wall I am going to use hue & saturation. I am not able to get the desired color with curves so after adding the curves I am going to use hue & saturation. To add hue and saturation press F7 for the layers palette. Click on add adjustment layer and the click on hue & saturation. Click on colorize and then I am going to adjust the hue & sat bar as per my requirement.

STEP 7
As I have added the colors to my photo I am going to give the final touch to my photo. I am going to add levels to my photo. But before that I am going to change the mode from CMYK to RGB. Go to image>mode>RGB. Now for the final touch go to image>adjustment>levels and adjust the levels according to you.

And finally you are done here. I know you guys are thinking its so long trick but it would take only 3-4 minutes or less if you know are familiar with Photoshop.Thanks for reading this article and lot of cool tricks are also available here. Enjoy them also. Dont forget to leave comment and also dont forget to share it with Facebook, Twitter and more. Follow trickyphotoshop on Twitter for the latest updates and also dont forget to like trickyphotoshop. If any trick that you want to know that you dont know that simply contact me by emailing me and my email address is given below. I would love to teach you that trick.