Learn how to turn a black and white photo into color. This tutorial
will teach you how to use non-destructive adjustment layers to color an
image. This method lets you make modifications anytime and in return,
let you create noticeably better results than just using a single raster
layer.
Photoshop Tutorial Preview
Step 1
Open a black and white photo into Photoshop. This can be done by
going to File> Open, browsing for the photo, and clicking OK. Here’s
the black and white photo that I’ll be using for this tutorial:
Step 2
First, we’re not going to create a new layer and paint all the colors
in that layer like many other tutorials teach you. Instead, we’ll use a
Solid Color adjustment layer. This will let you modify the color
anytime you want so that you can tweak the colors once you’re done all
the painting. This is very important because we usually don’t get the
color correct the first time and need to make adjustments after we’re
done. To add a Sold Color adjustment layer, click on the “New Adjustment
Layer” button in the Layers pallet. This should open a menu where you
can select Solid Color.
Step 3
Once you clicked “Solid Color”, you’ll see a “Pick a solid color:”
window where you can select the color. First, we’ll select the color of
the skin. It doesn’t matter if you pick the correct color, just make
sure that the hue is correct. For example, for this skin tone I’ll pick
an orange. It doesn’t matter if it’s a light or dark orange, I’ll just
pick any orange for now because I can edit it layer when I have all the
colors in place. Start off with the skin tone, so pick roughly the same
color as I did.
Step 4
Now you should see a solid orange color in your image. Don’t worry,
in the Layers pallet, change the blend mode to Color. This will make
this Sold adjustment layer only affect the color of the layer below.
Your photo should now have a orange tint.
Step 5
Now click on the layer mask in the layers pallet. It should have a
white outline around the thumbnail. Once you’ve done that, it means
you’ve activated the layer mask. Now select the eraser tool and erase
all the areas that orange isn’t part of the skin. If you make a mistake,
simply select the brush tool and paint back the area that you
accidentally erased. Use a brush with a hardness of about 50 or higher
or else you’ll get a halo effect in the final outcome. If you have
objects other than the skin that’s orange too, don’t paint that orange
because it might be a different orange. You want to only paint one
object at a time and each object with its own layer. Why? Because that
orange object could be a different orange than your skin. It may be hard
to see it now, but once you have all the layers, you’ll see that the
slightest difference makes the biggest change. Also, if you happen to
want that object to be a different color, you can change it without
affecting everything else.
Step 6
Now repeat those steps for the rest of the image except for the
background. As you can see in the image below, the layer with yellow is
for the hair and I have two separate red layers. One is for the lips and
another is for her shirt which isn’t shown. I made them in separate
layers because I know that the color of the red shirt isn’t the same red
as her lips. Now the colors may look way too vibrant right now, but
don’t worry because we can fix that by modifying the adjustment layer
color.
Step 7
Look at the image below. See what a big difference the color makes?
What I did was I double clicked on each layer (the color thumbnail) and
adjusted the color. I didn’t change the hue, I only picked the same
color with a different saturation and lightness. I changed the skin to a
more tanned color, hair to a more neutral beigh color, and look at the
lips and shirt; before they were just two red layers but after adjusting
the color, you can clearly see that they’re very different colors after
I tweaked it. Now I had to go back into a few layer masks to touch up
some areas, so if there isn’t anything perfect, you can fix it up right
now and not having to worry about undoing a bunch of steps and redoing
everything. This is the power of non-destructive adjustment layers and
layer masks.
Step 8
We’re almost done, but first we have to color the background and most
importantly the eyes. Eyes are not black and white, they can be dark
brown, but they’re not black. What I did was I created a new solid color
adjustment layer below all the other adjustment layers. This can be
done by clicking on the “New Adjustment Layer” button in the Layers
pallet and selecting Solid Color. I selected dark blue as the color and
painted her eyes. I cheated a bit and created both the background and
eyes on the same layer because I wanted the background color to affect
her eyes. This will make the photo more interesting and increase the
focus to her blue eyes.
Step 9
Here’s the final results after colorizing a black and white photo
with Photoshop. Now you can see I didn’t really do a good job with the
painting, but I can always touch up the layer masks.
Final Results
This is what it looks like after I retouched the skin tone slightly
and the layer masks (to make them more precise). For the skin tone, I
changed the hue slightly. It was very slight and fine tuning but the
results are huge. The previous color I thought was right looked like she
had jaundice or some sickness, but I chose a more red hue with less
yellow and this is what her skin looks like. What I also missed was a
whole blotch of color on her hand near the right edge. There was a gray
blotch there that I didn’t notice earlier. But after noticing it, I was
able to fix it up by painting the layer mask. Again, non-destructive
layer masks are the way to go for almost every project. You can go back
and modify them without undoing a bunch of steps. Colorizing black and
white photos with just one layer like many tutorials out there teach you
may be faster in the beginning, but if you want good results, using
layer masks will save you a lot more time in the end.
