Colorize Black and White with Realism in Photoshop

hey there this is animation pics in perfect and today we can learn one of the most realistic ways to color black and white images especially the skin in Photoshop by using color palettes also we'll learn how to literally paint as some areas with different colors to meet the skin look more natural instead of having the same tone throughout so how do we make all these palettes and color changes well there so a and interesting one look without any further ado let's get started so here we are get in the mystical world of Photoshop finish her go ahead and download this photo and follow along you know to do check the links in the description so here we have a black and white image now before we go ahead and color him here is the trick you need to open a reference image with similar lighting which is colored so I'm going to go to my finder and just drag and drop in this image you don't have to worry about resolution you don't have to worry about the quality just make sure the colors are right and the lighting conditions are similar just drag and drop it into Photoshop over the canvas now you can adjust it this is again just for reference what I'm gonna do I'm just gonna zoom in and maybe with the help of the lasso tool click on this lasso tool right here make a selection of just the skin now press ctrl or command + J and delete the reference so we just have this now we can create palettes this is the second step so select the brush tool now before you choose before you start sampling make sure you're in the eyedropper tool and the sample size is 5 by 5 or something like 3 by 3 not point sample if you don't want a sample from a mall or a noise or anything like that we want the average color so people take 5.5 average it will create a box of 5 by 5 pixels and take the average color and make sure sample all there's or current and below is selected in this case make sure it's all layers because we will need all layers later just zoom in quite a bit take the brush you can take a soft brush a hard round brush anything you want I'm just gonna take a hard around brush the first thing we do is to look at the highlights the brightest areas of the skin so I think this a is a little bright so I'll hold the alt or option and click to take a sample and then just paint and over here just like that now taken the darkest area of the skin so this according to me will be pretty dark this paint at the bottom just like this we are creating a ballot take in a little bit of the mid-tones now in the mid-tones there's also red there's also a little bit of yellowish tint so I'm gonna take somewhere in the middle you see to have a realistic skin it's also important you don't have the same tone throughout have a look at the original image the real colored image look at this here we have red here we have a patch of yellow here we have a little bit of magenta so it's important that there's a variety we'll take a sample from here for now just let's keep it like that I'll just paint over here alright and maybe a little bit moderately dark area like this we'll just paint right there something like that so we have a palette a relatively nice palette so you can just take the rectangular marquee tool to have some cleanliness you can just select that area and then press ctrl or command J do you kind of put it on its own layer and you can just delete it this is just to keep things clean and I'm gonna keep it at the side just like that okay this is for sampling the colors now it's time for us to color it's always important you keep the palette all the way at the top because we don't want any adjustment layer to effect the palette you can just double click on the right hand side and just name it skin color alright select the background layer and now we will create a gradient map click on the adjustment layer icon and choose gradient map now this is gonna be a special gradient map created with these colors ok so single click here and on the right hand side we have the highlights on the left hand side we will have the shadows so click on the right hand side single click on the color and then sample this color make sure it's all layers again didn't I see you to select all layers in the beginning it's gonna be helpful because if you choose current and below you won't be able to select this because it is at the top of the gradient map so make sure all layers is checked and this is the color that you need to click on but it's not sampling anything what's the issue the issue is this you need to click on this one not the mask the mask is all white ok click on this one and then single click on that one then click on this the right hand side and single click here then it will take a sample just sample this hit OK for the left hand side single click here single click on the color and click on the dark one okay you can also double click here it will also open up the same thing it's totally personal preference now create a point here click on in here single click on the color maybe I'll take this color see how gradually we are going click on in here single click here and take a sample of this color maybe on the extreme right what I'll do is I'll create one more and single click here and make it even brighter a little bit just like so something like this hit OK it looks nice now what we need to do let's collapse it let's zoom in I did something wrong all right let's zoom in and just adjust all of these sliders accordingly according to the skin so I guess we can take this a little bit to the right you see we are getting more and more details maybe we can take this to the right as well this one as well hit okay now change the blend mode from normal to color because we do use this color this right so change it from normal to color just like so have a look it's literally so much more better now what you can do you can double click on it single click on it collapse it and now you can also play with this as much as you like so I'm gonna take this one a little bit to the left like that okay this looks nice I'm gonna hit okay that's fine now it's time for us to mask in adjust the skin select the mask press ctrl or command I take the brush make sure it's a soft round brush click on in here choose soft round brush and then start painting on the skin that's it zoom in make sure the flow and opacity are at hundred just start painting on the skin with white as the foreground color you can press X to toggle between the foreground and the background and just start painting now there's a step that you might have to do I'm going to tell that to you later to make the skin even more realistic at this point it's not looking realistic at all because we have not done that step yet I'm doing very in accurately you can take your time to do it as accurately as you want just paint now this is a very rough painting on the skin but as you can see this is looking good now what happens is in real life and ever there's a color on something have a look at my skin okay it's not very nice skintone but you get the idea if you look at the dark areas of the skin it doesn't have so much color if you look at the bright areas of the skin if you look at the highlights it doesn't have much color but the mid-tones you'll have a lot of color so as you can see in this in the dark areas as well we have a lot of color in the highlights as well we have a lot of color so what if we dig away a little bit of color from the bright areas and the dark areas from the highlights and the shadows we can do that by using blend if double-click on the right hand side of the layer this opens up the blending options of the layer Styles dialog box now take the slider of the underlying layer from left to right we are taking away the dark areas of the underlying layer which is the layer of the person the dark areas from the photo of the person away you are hiding those areas in the current level which means we are hiding the colors in the dark areas so if we take it to the right see the colors are being hidden but it's very harsh right hold the alt or option click on it and make it smoother like that now as you can see it will be much more realistic you can do the same here as well hold the alt or option click on this one and take it away from the highlights as well it's making it much more realistic okay that's all good maybe I'll go back to this one take the brush and maybe I'll paint this area this area is just not looking realistic maybe I need to revisit the blending options double click on the right hand side to open up the layer Styles again and maybe you'll have to just go with that one hit OK this is all good and now it's time for us to revisit the gradient click on this one now maybe in the dark areas you want maybe let's just play with the colors click on that one and let's play with brightness 4 if we just decrease the brightness how will it look what about the saturation what if you just decrease the saturation it's great it okay maybe let's take it a little to the left like that and now let's play with this one click on the color you can play with the hue click on H and just let's make it a little more yellowish doesn't help it just makes it a goblin you don't want that okay let's this is nice what about saturation let's try decreasing the saturation Wow it's more realistic I like that now hit okay I'm happy with this color click on this one single click on this one now you can play with hue saturation let's take it up and try to take it down I think this is fine and let's play with saturation if I decrease the saturation it's too much decreased this is fine let's play with brightness this is a good value that's all nice that's all nice and good let's play with this one or what if I just simply delete it you don't need that one it's much more smooth the gradient that way I think this is looking pretty realistic and nice now it's time for us to do a little bit of patchy things or painting things which will make the skin look more natural you'll take care of the masks and everything will refine it later but first of all let's take care of that one so we will create a hue/saturation adjustment layer click on the adjustment layer icon and then choose hue/saturation now we will select this color click on this hand tool and just click on this color as you can see it shows up reds which you can do you can extend the range a little bit to make sure all of it is selected and then just maybe take the hue to the left to make it a little reddish okay this is fine increase the saturation too much and decrease the lightness increase the saturation just like this we have added a lot of red now we only want to add it in some areas the areas where the blood vessels are so much so click on the mask press ctrl or command I now you would take the brush make sure it is a soft round brush for the flow somewhere around at five to ten percent I'm gonna select maybe five percent just zoom in white as the foreground color paint on the areas which can be a little reddish like this area I'm gonna paint in here a little bit you see how I look at the difference here's two before here's the after look at that difference it's much more realistic that way you can also set the flow to somewhere around 10% just here and there just to keep things random and nice maybe a little bit over there in the cheek maybe here the ears yours can be a little red sometimes not all the time this is fine now have a look at the difference here's the before here's the after look how realistic that looks right now so I'm doing it very quickly at this moment you can take your time do it as precisely as you want you can just paint right on every wrinkle like that this is all good now let's go back to the gradient map and there are some other areas which we need to paint for example this neck so select that and we take the brush and just paint on that area increase the flow to about 100 and just paint maybe we'll need a little bit red over them select this one and decrease the flow to somewhere around 10% and just paint a little red over there all right this is looking pretty nice maybe I'll just take away a little one all right great now I know this is not accurate we are painting over the shirt you gonna take care of all of that later don't worry about that now it's time for us to color some other areas now except for the skin other areas can have the same tone through up of course it's artificial it's painted unlike the skin which is powered by blood the red in there okay so here is what we do we create a hue/saturation adjustment layer and we will use gonna rise to color these things now for the Hat we can choose a green color click on colorize and maybe we'll choose something or blue is fine too so this blue looks nice increase the saturation a little bit lightness is fine the way it was maybe this is great click on the mask press ctrl or command I just take the brush and just paint with white not a big deal again I'm careless about the masks I've painted a little extra press X to switch it to black all right I know there's color leaking on the left-hand side let's zoom in and paint in black there all right now let's increase the flow and just paint a little more color in these areas now let's do the shirt so for the shirt it's not big of a deal create one more hue/saturation adjustment lamp click on colorize maybe you want the shirt a little blue to light blue so you can increase the saturation if you want we just decrease the lightness a touch don't go extremes with lightness in the master settings or especially when you're just clicking on colorize this blue is nice select the mask control or command I take the brush make sure the foreground color is white and just simply paint on that area as I can see the saturation seems to be a little too much maybe let's decrease the saturation yes that looks to be realistic now all you need to do is to refine the mosque and before we do that let's just go ahead and color the eyes as well create four more hues as raishin adjustment layer and you can choose color wise or you can go the skin color method as well it's totally upon you there's not so much details in the eye so you just simply colorize it so maybe we'll add a little blue eyes okay select the mask control or command I and then just add a little color over there and keep in mind we can always change the color later okay there we go let's zoom out and have a look the colors are looking very nice you can increase the saturation if you want but not so much this is fine maybe you want to change the color let's take it a little to the right and it's looking very very nice now I know that we have just painted a little extra over the white areas which we shouldn't have again all we need to do right now is just refining the musk let's go back to the skin the gradient map that we did select the brush foreground color white and then just simply refine the mask it's not difficult maybe let's take the flow to 5% and then just paint in these areas once you do refine the skin then you have to refine the shirt that you painted and then you have to refine maybe the Hat so on and so forth just go forward just take your time maybe here as you can see there's a skin with just underneath all of this so you need to paint with a lower flow so you go to the mosque you paint with flow 5% maybe just go a little bit inside of it see it makes a difference so you can take your time to do this and I'm going to show you the final result just paint a little bit over there maybe a little over here and you get the idea so I took the time to just refine the mosque and here as you can see is the final result so this is the before and this is the after that's all you need to do so that's how to use color palettes to get it to look very very realistic just a tiny recap before you do anything open up a reference image and from that reference image people create a palette sample the brightest areas of the skin sample the darkest areas of the skin and create a palette you can have as many colors in the palette as you want just make sure it goes from light to dark also keep in mind that the reference that you choose should be in similar lighting conditions once that is done you can create a gradient map with that palette and once you do that change the blend mode to color and on top of this you can create a hue/saturation adjustment layer make it a little red and Beant on some dark areas of the skin or some other that she areas of the skin where you want to introduce the red to make it look realistic after that for some inanimate objects with similar skin tone throughout you can simply add a hue/saturation adjustment layer check colorize and add any color anywhere you want just go forward with it and you'll be good I hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe bring the bells that you my friend don't miss any other is your tip trick or tutorial I would like take this moment to thank all these nice and amazing people for supporting this channel on patreon and helping keep pixon perfect free for everybody or ever thank you so much for all your support thank you for watching I'll see you guys my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 1,745,689

Keywords: colorize black and white, photoshop tutorial, adobe, black and white to color, realistic skin tone, skin retouching, color palette, gradient maps, hue/saturation, blend-if, blend modes, restoration, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: k5Y8YcKnRm0

Length: 18min 58sec (1138 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 12 2018