Photoshop CS3: Add a Touch Of Color
Guest Post | Oct 12, 2009 | Comments View Comments
This guest post was provided by Laura Charon of BeyondMegapixels.com
I love black and white photography. I also love the black and white photos that draw the eye by adding a touch of color to a feature within the photo.
This is the photo I began with. My husband’s favorite beverage, being enjoyed on a patio restaurant in Snowmass Village, Colorado.
First, I created a duplicate layer in Photoshop, using the keyboard command Ctrl-J. Then, I removed the color from the duplicate layer by using the Desaturate command (Image menu/Adjustments/Desaturate).
Next, I added a Layer Mask (bottom of the Layers panel, looks like a white circle inside of a gray square). Then I chose a soft-edged brush and ensured my foreground color was set to black (shortcut – press D on the keyboard). Next I simply “painted” over the area that I wished to bring the color back into:
The cool thing is that if you make a mistake and find yourself “overpainting” and turning areas of the image back into color that you want to remain black and white, you can “erase” the color by pressing X to switch your foreground color to white. Then as you paint over the image it will return that area back to black and white. Just remember to press X again to switch the foreground color back to black when you’re done.
When you’ve got your image looking the way you want it, just flatten it and you’re done! Here’s the finished picture:
(This entry is not an advertisement for, and this website is not affiliated with, Fat Tire Beer or New Belgium Brewery.)
Photo Credits: Laura Charon
For more great articles on photography from Laura Charon head on over to BeyondMegapixels.com
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Great Tip! =)
Very cool tutorial. I see this effect used all the time, but had no idea how to properly do this. Thanks!
Stunning tips and good piece of work your shown us, very creative work possible to do in CS3, thx for giving knowledge of CS3
Will the steps be the same in CS4? Thanks for a great tip!
Yeah, the steps should be the same in CS4. It's all about working with layers.
Thanks Damien. I've always photographed without using any programs like CS4, as times move on I see it's a must so I bought CS4 but it's all Greek to me right now and this seems like a nice & easy project to start with. (hopefully)
Yeah, good photography post production software opens more doors in the realm of digital photography.
Very informative tutorial. Thanks.
i am having an issue with this
I am using CS3 and am trying to color a yelow section of my photo but it isnt coming in as the right color its looking like a washed out yellow… what am i doing wrong?
scott
Tough to say without looking at the photograph in question. My knee-jerk response is that it probably isn't actually “washed out”. Yellow is kinda one of those colors that plays heavily within it's surrounding environment. In other words, it may look more washed out because there are no other colors in the image to give “context” to the actual hue of the yellow object.
If that's the case, then you may want to try to over-saturate the color layer and see how that works out.
One last thing may be to double check that your brush on the layer mask is at 100% so that you're revealing all of the color underneath.
Hope this helps.
I am absolutely astounded by Photoshop's color adjustment capabilities.
You cannot do it with only CS3…there are add on that you can buy to do that. One called on One Genuine Fractals, which is a plug in in CS3. Or you can buy Photo Zoom Pro, a separate application by itself…it works wonder. I tried/use both. Depend on what I'm working on.
I also like black and white photography. It's really cool.
I'm using Photoshop CS3. I get beautiful results.
I'm using Photoshop CS3. I get beautiful results.