Photoshop Friday! {Issue #11}
Don’t forget that I sneaked in another PS Friday on Monday, just trying to get caught up. So if you missed it, read back a couple of posts. :)
This week’s PS Friday comes by special request from a few people, and most recently from Tara. So thanks for the request, and here goes:
Selective re-coloring of black-and-white photos.
Like this:
First, we need a color photo.
I’ll use this one:
The first thing we need to do is duplicate our original image.
- In the layers palette, right-click on the photo name, and choose Duplicate Layer from the popup menu.
- Now target the new layer.
- Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate (PSE: Enhance > Adjust Color > Remove color.
Now we have a really crappy black and white conversion. In almost all cases, you’ll want to do some tweaks to your photo, such as boosting the contrast. You could add a gradient map adjustment layer like in this PS Friday: http://photoshopfriday.blogspot.com/2006/06/ps-friday-issue-8.html
And you’ll just need to merge that adjustment layer down before continuing on.
OR
You could open the Levels window, Image > Adjustments > Levels (PSE: Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels).
Adjusting Levels to Boost Contrast
Drag the white slider toward the left, and adjust the middle (grey) slider to set the midtones (not too dark, not too light). When you’re happy with the contrast boost, hit OK in that window and we’re ready to add some color back in.
Adding Color back to the Photo
The key to this technique is that we duplicated the photo and converted the top copy to black and white, so we have an undisturbed copy below this layer. We’ll use the eraser tool to erase through our black and white layer, showing the color layer down below. And after that I’ll give a lecture about non-destructive editing. :)
The Eraser Method:
- Grab the eraser tool from the toolbar, choose a small, hard-edged brush.
- Zoom in on your image to get a nice view of it.
- Now simply erase all the bits that you would like to be in color, and the bottom layer will begin to show through.
This works just fine as a quick-and-dirty method. When you make a mistake, you can simply Ctrl-z to undo.
Next opportunity I get, we’ll talk about using layer masks instead of the eraser tool for non-destrctive editing. And won’t that be fun? :)
Have a wonderful weekend!
Posted on Friday, August 4, 2006 at 10:23AM
by
Jessica
in Photoshop Friday
|
11 Comments
|
7 References
Jessica
in Photoshop Friday
|
11 Comments
|
7 References
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Reader Comments (11)
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