Colorize black and white photographs Photoshop tutorial

Tutorial by Kendall

We're going to start off with a picture of my friend:

Step 1: Image->Adjustments->Desaturate (Shift+Ctrl+U)

Step 2: We're going to attempt to color the girl and only the girl. So first we have to start off by tracing every object that will have a seperate color (IE: shirt, hair, skin, etc.). Lets grab the magnetic lasso tool (L). And start to outline her shirt. TIP: if the magnetic tool is being stubborn you can take away points by hitting backspace, or add your own points with left click.

Step 3: After you have the shirt outlined, duplicate the layer; Layer->Duplicate Layer (Ctrl+J), and set the blend mode to color

Step 4: With the shirt layer selected, bring up your Hue/Saturation window. Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U). Make sure the "colorize" option is checked. And start playing with the adjustments until you get the desired color, try not to get to carried away with the saturation this can often lead to a fake looking object.

Step 5: After you have the shirt done, go back to your background layer and start doing the other objects just like the shirt. Tip: One thing to keep in mind is how you have your objects stacked. For instance, if the shirt is the top layer, you dont have to worry about tracing the skin perfectly where it connects to the shirt, cause you can just hide the edge underneath the shirt layer. I like to take the eaisest one traceable and keep it on top, that way I can save some time and stress on tracing the hader objects touching the shirt. (hope that makes sense)

Step 6: You're pretty much done at this point, you might need to take a brush eraser to clean up some of your edges where it didnt trace perfectly. Aslo try using the dodge/burn tool to help blend areas in where they look bad.

Some other things to keep in mind:
You might be more comfortable using the polygonal lasso tool instead of the magnetic one, whichever works best for you.

It was hard for me to capture a realilistic color for the skin, so I got as close as I could then used the Image->Adjustments->Brightness/Contrast option to capture the look I wanted, worked out pretty good for me

I also used the burn tool to darken some of the background to help bring more attetion to the girl, Also darkened some little areas on her to make her look better. This was my final photo:

Tutorial by Kendall

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