Awesome Photorealistic Coloring Techniques
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In this tutorial we will color a black and white photo using gradient maps, solid colors, and the Color blending mode. Using these techniques, you will be able to hand color any black and white photo in a way that looks photorealistic.
Final Image Preview
Before we get started, let’s take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Before and after images are shown below. Click the screenshot to view a large color version. As always, the full Photoshop file is available via our Psdtuts+ Plus membership.
Step 1
Double-click on the background image to make it an active layer. Create a new group by clicking on the little folder icon located at the bottom of the layers palette and put the layer in the group. Name the group “girl”. Draw a path around all the hard edges of the girl. This includes the face and the shoulders. Don’t worry about the hair for now; we will do that separately. Save the path. Make a selection of the path by holding Command-clicking on the path thumbnail in the paths palette. Hit Alt+Command+D and Feather the selection by 0.5px. Apply the selection as a mask on the “girl” group.
Step 2
Disable the mask on the “girl” group by holding Shift-clicking on the mask thumbnail. Now in the Channels palette, duplicate the red channel by dragging it to the New Channel button at the bottom of the palette. Apply a harsh curve, like the one below, to separate the hair from the background as much as you can.
Step 3
Hit Command+I to invert the red copy channel. Re-enable the mask on the “girl” group. Load the selection of the red copy channel with your background color set to white. Hit Delete(backspace) to fill the selection with white on the “girl” mask. If you hit Alt+Click on the mask thumbnail, you can see the mask as a channel. Clean up anything that looks as though it shouldn’t be there, like that line between the hair and the face.
Step 4
Now let’s start to add some color using a Gradient Map. In the “girl” group, make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer just above layer 0. Hit OK without doing anything and set the Gradient Map layer’s blending mode to Color. Now double-click on the Gradient Map’s layer thumbnail to open up the settings again.
A Gradient Map uses the grayscale data from the image below it to apply the gradient that you create. The left side of the gradient represents the darkest parts of the image. The right side represents the light parts. We need to make a gradient that represents what the woman’s skin tone might look like from dark to light. I used the gradient below.
Step 5
Draw a path around the eyes. Load the selection of the path and Feather it 0.5px as we did before. Make a Curves adjustment layer just above the skin layer. Then lighten the eyes a little bit. Now make a Gradient Map layer just above the curves layer and hit OK before adjusting any settings. Set the new Gradient Map layer’s blending mode to color. Now hit Alt+Command+G to apply it as a clipping mask to the curves layer. Now change the Gradient Map’s settings to a pink-to-white fade like below.
Step 6
Draw a path around just the iris of the eye. Note that we need only the path to follow that one curve between the iris and the whites because the adjustment we are making will be applied as a clipping mask. Load the selection and Feather it 2px. Make a solid color adjustment layer just above the Gradient Map from the previous step. Then set it to a dark faded green. Hit Alt+Command+G to apply it to the same clipping mask you made earlier. Set the blending mode of the green layer to color. You might have to go back and adjust the green until you get a color that looks real.
Step 7
Repeat all the previous steps for the lips, except for this one we’ll leave the blending mode of the Gradient Map to Normal, and set the layer’s Opacity to 65%.
Step 8
We need to get more variance of color in the skin tones to make it look more real. I made some selections around the eyes, nose, and cheeks. Then I feathered them 20–40px, created solid color adjustment layers, set the blending modes to Color, and brought the Opacity way down to 10-20%. Below you can see my selections as quick masks. The layer palette shows the colors I used for the different areas. As you can see I used some red to add some blush to the cheeks, some red around the nose, mouth and eyes, and some blue to go on the bags of her eyes. These small details make all the difference.
Step 9
Make a loose selection around the face and neck and feather it 50px. Make a curves adjustment layer just above the ‘skin’ Gradient Map that we made earlier. I just went in and tweaked the colors a bit to get a little more color variation in the skin tone. You can download the curve file I used here.
Step 10
Now we need to make a selection of the hair. I used the path that I saved from Step 1. Then I modified it a little to line up with the hairline’s shape and softness. I did this by using Quick Mask Mode(Q), and using brushes of various sizes and softness to match the hairline.
Make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer at the top of the “girl” group. Make the gradient a similar to the image below. I left the blending mode at Normal for this layer.
Step 11
Make a selection of the shirt. Then make a new Gradient Map adjustment layer. Hit OK and set the blending mode to Color, as we have done before. Edit the gradient so that it looks something like the one below. You will have to play around with the gradient until you get a good separation between the green and white stripes.
Step 12
Choose a Sky image. I used one I shot myself, but there are plenty of stock images you could use. Bring it into the document below the “girl” group. Hit Command+T, and size it to fill the frame. It looks good, but notice that our hair mask still isn’t really looking that good against the blue background. The hair turns a muddy gray in the transition between hair and sky. To fix this, make a new blank layer just above Layer 0 (the image of the girl). With a large and soft black brush paint over those areas with an Opacity of 15-25% until the transition looks better.
As an added bonus, I applied the techniques from the Super Quick and Easy Facial Retouching tutorial to smooth out her face a little bit. As you can tell, I decided to make her red haired, but you can make your gradients whatever color you would like. She just seemed like a redhead to me. Here is the final image.
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By Kyle Pero
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Thats a cool technique of coloring in photoshop. I can really put this to use at work.
Very nice, the selection of the hair is very good, thx fot this tut.
great job! very nice technique !
awesome! can’t wait to trying this out when i get home…
WOW!!!!
incredible, really! thanks very much for sharing.
Discoverig the site and it ROCKS!
Wow, this looks really cool! Can’t wait to start on it this weekend.
Can’t wait to do this! Awesome
If i want the girl’s photo without background to follow much easier the tutorial, do i need to join “psd tuts plus”??
Bye Dude..
jazznoise AKA Pitrus
Wow great tutorial. I like the finish product.
Final product looks great but who wrote the tutorial? Jee whiz! Mighty confusing at times.
thanks
Good work!
really cool
very helpful stuff
jesse wright photography
That is one of the coolest Photoshop tutorials I have ever seen.
that’s pretty nifty.
wow,looking for this for sometime
thanx for the tutorial,i am learning a lot from the site
thanx again keep up
Great job. These tutorials on your site really help a newbie in digital slr camera photography like me, to enhance my photography works. Thanks a lot.
This tutorial is nowhere near specific enough for beginners..
Nice, but realistic skin color? No.
I’m not to evaluate this excellent tutorial, so impressive indeed. I’m trying to find my way through this and I’d really appreciate it if you could just give me some detailed steps about paths; saving and applying’em. Thanks a million in advance.
Cool good stuff, thanks!
Great tutorial, one of my favs on the site thus far!
Wow .. It’s wonderful .. Thanks dear :)
WoW!
Very Fantastic
Really Fantastic
very good you idea, You are good tincique
I dont get it can you make the tutorial more simpler please?? like saying exactly what buttons to pree..
I am really very new to photosoph and will appreaciate the help
Sensacional! Explêndido! MagnÃfico!
I can’t belive it…you explaiined it so simply that even a newbie like me was able to understand…
I have just joined and yours is the first tutorial I have seen. I don’t know about the rest of material, but this was really amazing….
Much appreciated.
Nick
Really amazing!!
Wow .. It’s wonderful ..
great tutorial!!
thanks..
yeah im not really understanding all of this photoshop jargon. i need the lesson to be a little more simpler. i’m definitely lost at just step 3! my hair won’t show up…
please help!
thank you!!
Best tutorial about photo editing/enhancing i’ve seen this year , and it still is nr 1 .. awesome work and very good detailed tutorial . hat’s off m8
I’m not a beginner, but I had a hard time following this tutorial. It could definitely use a lot more specifics.
Hey Einstein, next time try to make it a bit more understanding. Very inacurate tutorial though, what if the picture is not this exact photo, then what? Different lighting conditions, different colors???
same tut??
http://www.okapixel.com/
Thanks for Posting.
Great Tut.
THE BEST TUT ABT PHOTO MANIP I HAVE COME ACROSS…I AM INSPIRED FOR A WEEK NOW :)
hi Kyle ! Great Tut
i have a question.
how do i select “red copy” channel in curves channel
I dont think i will be able to that. it’s just too much
great i luv it do u av video version of it that one can watch over and over again
Great, thank you.
Been looking through tutorials all day and these are perfect.
Great Tutoirals, thank you.
hi i need some help wit this tut…
im kinda stuck on step 3…
im not sure what im supposed to be doing with the inverted mask thing
so id really appreciate it if u could further explain what i need to do cuz this is an awesome tut…
thanks in advance!
very, very cool, thanks!
truly brilliant :D much appreciated
Its good, I guess, but I got lost on step 3, key bindings are different, for example hitting “Alt+Command+D (step 1)” on my mac, does nothing on photoshop, but It hides my icons on my mac.
Not really for beginners I think, but the concept is great.