Color Enhancement in a Black and White Photo
The First Way
1) Open a suitable photograph, this can be any subject but ideally it needs an
area of bright color that will have an impact when it’s finished while the rest of the
photo looks good in black and white. For example:
Photo by Kaz Watanabe
2) Then make a copy of a layer with the image. Right click on a layer with the
image and choose “Duplicate the layer” from the context menu. You’ll get a new
copied layer as you see on the picture below.
3) Now go back to first layer with the image and turn it black and white using
the “Black & White” button on the right side.
4) Select the Eraser Tool from the tool menu on the left of the screen (usually
the fifth icon down in the right hand column), set hardness to 100% and choose a
suitable eraser size to work with on the section of the photo you want to put in
color.
5) Now use the eraser and go over the area you want without color, it will erase
the color and bring it to the black and white, demonstrating black and white
background layer. You may need to zoom and work close up on some sections.
Take your time and change eraser sizes if you need to. Here is my result image:
6) And one more tip, in order to make a picture more realistic you can reduce
the Opacity and Fill of the colored layer to 80 %.
The Second Way
1) Open the image you like in Photoshop. It should be similar to the previous
one, I mean it has to have an area for bright colors. This time I took a photo with
a blue butterfly on the blurred background.
Photo by Dariusz Lakomy
2) Take a Polygonal Lasso Tool from the left sidebar menu. This tool helps you
to select the area you need and cut or copy it, or do with it whatever you need.
3) Using Polygonal Lasso Tool select the area of the butterfly you want to be
colored and right click on it with the mouse. There should be a drop down menu,
choose “Layer via Copy”.
It means that the selected and cropped area is copied to a new layer.
4) Then get back to the previous layer with the image and turn it black and
white in the way you know. You can use the piece of advice I gave you in a
previous part of tutorial.
Also Refer to the NOTES you took on this assignment for a simpler breakdown.
Save project as FirstNameProjectName ---- Color (save as .jpg)
Refer to the following site for information sited in tutorial.
http://photodoto.com/black-and-white-with-a-splash-of-colour/