Photoshop Tutorial: Best Way to Colorize Black & White Photos!

hi this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV I'm going to show you how to colorize black and white photos open a black-and-white photo you'd like to use for this project I downloaded this one from Shutterstock if you'd like to brighten the details in the darkest tones of your photo go to image adjustments and shadows highlights the shadows amount automatically defaults to 35% however to adjust the amount of brightness just drag it slider to the left or right then click OK we're going to isolate areas of your subject by making selections around those areas there are many ways to make selections however I'll use the quick selection tool if you're using this tool as well I generally make its radius between five to ten pixels depending on the resolution of the photo I'll start by isolating the background from my subject by dragging my tool over my subject to select it to remove areas of the selection press and hold alt on Windows or option on a Mac as you drag over those areas continue to drag your tool over your subject until it's all selected to check your selection press Q to make it into a quickmask then press Q again to revert it back into a selection once you're happy with the selection we can refine it by either clicking the refine edge button or by going to select and refine edge I did an in-depth tutorial on refine edge so if you'd like to watch it I provided its link in my video's description below check smart radius drag the radius to the right a bit as well as smooth to make your tool bigger or smaller you can adjust it here drag your tool over the edges of your subject where you'd like to refine the quickmask output it as a selection and if you want to save the settings check remember settings then click OK press ctrl or command shift I to invert the selection click the adjustment layer icon and click solid color instantly the selection became the shape inside the layer mask of solid color pick a color you want for your background since I already know the color I want I'll type it in the hexadecimal field once you pick your color click OK if your photos original background is white change the adjustment layers blend mode to multiply otherwise choose color or overlay reduce its opacity to an a map that looks good to you make your photo active and drag the quick selection tool over another part of your subject to select it I'm selecting the hair click the refine edge button or go to select and refine edge if you chose not to check remember settings as before check smart radius drag the radius to the right a bit as well as smooth I'll drag my tool over the edges of the hair that I'd like to refine and click okay click the adjustment layer icon again and as before click solid color once again your new selection became the shape inside the layer mask I already know the color I want for the hair so I'll just type it in I can either click OK or press Enter or return this time I'll change the blend mode to color generally I find the color or overlay works the best then reduce its opacity to Ana map that looks good to you to colorize another area of your subject make your subject active and drag your quick selection tool over that area I'm selecting her clothing open refine edge and if you checked remember settings just click ok repeat the same steps as you did earlier by clicking the adjustment layer icon and checking solid color again the selection became a quick mask next to your solid color adjustment layer pick a color and click OK or press Enter or return change its blend mode to overlay or color depending on which looks better to you then reduce its opacity continue to repeat these steps for all other areas you're going to colorize to enhance an area with soft airbrush colors will make a composite snapshot of our image first scroll to the top of your layers panel make the top layer active and press control shift alt e' on Windows or command shift option E on a Mac open your brush tool and brush picker will adjust the brush size in a minute make its hardness 0% the opacity 50% and change its blend mode to color click your foreground color and pick a color you want to brush in then click OK to make your brush bigger or smaller press the right or left bracket key on your keyboard then gently brush in the color to pick another color click your foreground color and pick another color then brush it in this is Marty from Blue Lightning TV thanks for watching

Channel: Blue Lightning TV Photoshop

Views: 364,991

Keywords: Adobe, Photoshop, Photoshop CC, tutorial, colorize, black and white, colorize photo, photography, photo, hue, color, saturation, brighten, shadows, highlights, quick selection, refine edge, smart radius, quick mask, selection, invert, blend mode, overlay, hair, layer mask, brush

Id: LB-o1-LyGlM

Length: 7min 16sec (436 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/mushroomgodmat]

Pretty good vid, but missing one important point....

Skin is rarely a flat hue, things such as subsurface scattering take effect meaning that darker areas are often more saturated, or have slight hue changes.

In the vid here the author has used simple "solid colour" adjustment layers. Nothing too wrong with that, it gets you 90% there, but it does give a very flat tone. A better option would be to use "gradient maps" where you can add additional coliours based on total values. For skins at least this can work very well. You can effectively push more reds and oranges into the shadows giving you something that looks a little more realistic.

[u/acm]

Good tutorial. I learned a couple tricks on photoshop from it.

In the end the girl looks like a humanoid robot.

[u/PerNots]

What i don't like about those videos is that it just shows you what you have to do, not why. For example what makes the difference between 'overlay' and 'color'. Guess i'll have to look this up now.

Still a nice vid.

[u/Its_Obvi_PShopped]

I wouldn't say its the "best" way. Just more of " A" way.

[u/ElPolloPablonious]

"Continue to drag your tool over the subject..."