Digital Tutorials - Page 9

Spot Coloring

Let's start with a full color image:

1. Open your image
   
   
2. Make two copies (SHIFT + D), and close your original image
   
   
3. Convert one of the copies to greyscale - Image Menu, Greyscale
   (Image 1)
   
   
4. Once an image is greyscale, most of the tools in PSP will not work, so you need to increase the color depth - Image Menu, Increase Color Depth, RBG-8/bits channel
   
   
5. Copy your greyscale image and paste as a new layer in your color image (click on your greyscale image and CLT + C, click on your color image and CLT + L).
   
   If you look at the Layer Pallette, you can see the original color layer on the bottom and the greyscale layer on top.
   (Image 2)
   
   
6. Close your greyscale image and just keep your combined image.
   
   NOTE: You can have either the greyscale image or the color image on top.
   
   
7. Click your Eraser Tool, choose your Round Shape, Size depending on your image (I used 20)
   
   
8. Start erasing where you want the color layer to show through. On the image to the left, (Image 3), you can see where I started erasing at the girl's face, and the second image shows the entire girl colorized. You may need to zoom in on the image, depending on how exacting you want to be, and you may need to change to a smaller size eraser to get into small edges.
   
   

Easy, huh?

But, what if you only have a black and white or sepia image to start? Following are directions on how I added the purple coloring to the picture of this little cutie.

1. Open your image
   
   
2. You need to confirm that your black and white image is the proper color depth. Go to Image Menu, Increase Color Depth. If RBG-8/bits channel is NOT greyed out, then click it to increase the color depth. If it IS greyed out, then your image is already 8 bits. Another way to tell is to look at your Materials Pallette on the right side of your screen. If an image is greyscale, the pallette will be shades of grey as in Image 4. If 8 bits, the pallette will be in color as shown in Image 5.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Make two copies (SHIFT + D), and close your original image
   
   
4. You want to Colorize one of the images. Adjust Menu, Hue & Saturation, Colorize will bring up the Colorize Dialog box. Enter a number in both the Hue and Saturation boxes. The Hue is the actual color and the Saturation is how strong the color is. (Click here for a chart showing basic hues and their numbers). You can see that I choose a Hue of 190 and Saturation of 64. Image 6
   
   
5. Copy one image and paste as a new layer into the other image. Because I wanted most of my finished image to be in color, I placed the color image over the original image so I would have less to erase.
   
   
6. Click your Eraser Tool, choose your Round Shape, Size depending on your image (I used 20)
   
   
7. Start erasing where you want the sepia layer to show through. TIP: If you accidentally erase too much, just right-click with your mouse and go over that portion with the eraser tool and it will replace the color.

Bonus:

1. If you find that your color is too strong, you can lower the opacity on the colored layer. Open the Layer Pallette, and move the Opacity slider - you will see the color saturation change. (Image 7)
   
   
2. Merge layers and save your image.

Here is a sample of my original color, and one with the Opacity reduced to 57. (Image 8)

Click here to see a card made with this image.

         

Published in SSReflections On-Line Ezine