This simple Photoshop tutorial will cover how to turn a selection in a black and white digital photo into a colored area.Click on images to view details.

Last week, we looked at how to simply turn a colored digital image into black and white while maintaining colors in a specific selection. This week, we will be doing the opposite by simply turning a selection in a black and white photo into a colored selection.

We will start off with this black and white image of my cousin Jeeda (tip: you can easily turn a colored image into instant black and white by pressing “Shift+Ctrl+U”). I am going to attempt to color Jeeda while leaving the area around her intact, so first I will start by tracing every part of Jeeda that requires a different color (like skin, shirt, jeans, etc.).

Let’s start off with Jeeda’s skin, which should be beige-ish. Grab any of the selection tools (I would recommend the polygonal lasso tool, press L to select it), and start off by selecting Jeeda’s skin. After you have her face, neck and hands outlined, duplicate the selected area into a new layer via copy (Layer-> New-> Layer via Copy or press “Ctrl+J”.

Select the layer with the skin, bring up the Hue/Saturation window(Image->Adjustments->Hue/Saturation or press “Ctrl+U”). Check the “colorize” option in the Hue/Saturation window, and play with the adjustments until you get the desired color.

To capture more realilistic colors, you may use the Image-> djustments->Brightness/Contrast option after you colorize the selection.

After you achieve the desired color, go back to the background layer and select the other color areas and repeat the same step we did with the skin. Let’s now select the shirt and the socks, which I want to turn to pink, and repeat the same process

In the end, you should have various colored layers including eyes, shirt, and jeans, something like this:

The end result:

This tutorial will cover how to simply turn a digital image into black and white while maintaing colors in a specific selection. Click on images to view details.

I’ve always loved this picture of my friend Sarah except as you can see, it’s not very presentable due to below-average digital photography equipment. the terribly plain and dowdy colors. It just looks- boring! So naturally, I hit Photoshop, my answer to all life’s problems… After some thought, I decided that I want the image to focus on Sarah, headline, “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” (a good Jack Johnson song).

First off, I selected Sarah and her chair using the pen tool (press P, draw selection around object, then press A, right click, select “Make Selection” and turn it into a selection path).

Right click on the selection and select “Select Inverse” to select the background image and leave Sarah and her chair intact. Now press Shift+Control+Z to desaturate the background then go to “Image” -> “Adjustments” -> “Brightness/Contrast” and increase the contrast.

Now that we have the background all darkened out, we need to set the focus on Sarah. Right click on the selection again and select “Select Inverse” to reselect Sarah and her chair. Now press Control+B and edit the colors to get the most out of them.

Finally, “Select Inverse” one last time and use the brush tool to add “weight” to Sarah and her chair by darkening and increasing the shadow beneath them (let’s not over do it though, eh?) The result should look like this:

Digg It